Dealing with a poker jerk

Well, my plan to make money playing poker while here in Fresno didn’t work. It seems I couldn’t lose money in Washington and I can’t win money in California. I know it has nothing to do with any state, except the state of variance. Which, I am now in, and I hope to get to the other state of variance.

I drove out to the Palace in Lemoore, California and played 1/3 no-limit. There were some good players there, and I had good second best hands. Which means it was an expensive poker session.

I made it to 13th in the tournament and my Pocket Aces went up against pocket 10s and a ten came on the river. That one “hit me in the gut”, I really was playing well, with sharp focus and thought I was going all the way.

I don’t know if that one put me on a “slow burn tilt” or not. I walked for about 15 minutes in the parking lot to get back in a “winning poker” state of mind. Then, I went back in and got outplayed in one hand. Then I participated in a “donkey play” where I caught my gut shot straight, not even thinking about the flush draw on the board. I also somehow didn’t even notice, that I was up against “Rocky the Rock”. My straight card completed his flush, and I was down and out all the cash I had brought.

The next night in Club One in Fresno with a wild loose table I tripled up by buy-in and lost two river suck outs. I pushed in my last $80 on an open ended straight and was called by a bottom pair. No straight came, pair won. A few minutes later, I was driving home through the valley of discouragement.

I thought I had come further in my development as a player to let three in a row losing sessions get me down, but I “fell off the wagon” and let myself wallow in the mud of despair for awhile.

Yesterday, I drove out through the country and played at Chuchchasi Casino up by Yosemite. I call it “Chucky-cheese” casino. They only had 2/4 limit, so I played a couple of hours, had fun, remembered how to enjoy poker and then left for Table Mountain Casino. I heard they had more tables, bigger jackpots, and no-limit.

The first two items were true, but the no-limit is only on weekends. I played 3/6 limit and went up and down for the evening hoping to receive the high hand for the hour. It was a special promotion night, and the high hand every hour received $300. No high hands, for me, but I left up $16. That windfall, and the eight dollars, I won at Chuck-Cheese Casino brought my winnings, equal to the cost of the gas I spent to get here. Oh, it also paid for a dinner of onion rings and coffee, so I guess I am a winner after all.

I did have my revenge on the poker room jerk. You know the type. He locks up a seat with a chip. Then comes back about 10 minutes later and sits down and waits for the blinds to pass. He plays one round without having to post, then gets up and walks away from the table for 3 rounds. Just when they are going to pick up his chips, he comes back, posts and plays one round. Then he is gone for 3 rounds.


For those of you that don’t know poker very well, in a limit game, when a seat is empty it hurts all the rest of the players. The blinds do not decrease, and there is less potential money in the pot. I complained to the dealer about this rude, disrespectful behavior to me and all the other players at the table.

The dealer just shook his head and said “He couldn’t agree with me more, but the old, grumpy, player was a regular and nothing would be done about it.

I told him I understood, but please call the floor man because I wanted to register a complaint about the player, and if enough players did it, maybe something would be done. I also said, from the looks of that player, I would guess he is not a big tipper either.

The dealer almost choked back his laughter, but it got out.

The floor man was on break, but he promised as soon as he got back he would send him over. The other players started agreeing with me and I suggested every time he did that everybody needs to complain and eventually something would be done.

When he came back and sat down, I turned to him and asked “Will you be staying awhile this time?” He muttered, “you never know”. I stared at him for a few minutes knowing most bullies are cowards and he quickly broke eye contact.

The dealer had moved on to another table, but I saw him talking to the floor man, who had returned from dinner, and he sent him over as promised. He approached me and said “You wanted to see me?”

I said “Yes, I have a complaint against this player, indicating the player on my left. In the last hour he has played one free round, paid for one round, and missed 5 buttons. That is both rude and disrespectful to the table. I request you ask him not to abuse the privilege of taking a break or give me a table change. He quickly said “I will get you a table change, right away sir.” The jerk started arguing I was only gone 20 minutes, the player to his left, told him he was gone almost 45 minutes. The jerk was starting to squirm a little. I guess he was used to nobody talking to him about his behavior.

The floor man came back instantly, and said I have your new seat. “I said good luck to the rest of you.”

I glanced back a few hands later and noticed he had done it again. His chips were there and there was already one missed blind indicator at his place.

Later, I talked to the floor man about it, and he said to me, “Me and every dealer here agrees with you and hates that he does that, but there is no rule against him doing it I said I understood, the situation, he was in, but there is the “purpose for the rule” and the “law of the rule”. When the purpose is being abused, and it is hurting other players, you need to either get a rule in place to handle it or use your authority to pick him up, and put somebody else in his seat etc. He sadly, shook his head, and whined “you are right…but, there is nothing I can do……” I thanked him for his time, and said good luck, and decided to head home and enjoy being with my daughter and son-in-law before I needed to leave tomorrow. I felt sorry for the other players, who had to deal with this kind of attitude night after night and that nothing would be done about it. I just hoped others would speak out until this one injustice would cease.

If enough of us speak to the person in charge, and speak to the offender directly, we can get this stopped, rather then be victimized by a few rude jerks that continue to disrespect others at the table in this way.

Selective, assertive, action is better poker then “crying stations”. Speak out for your rights fellow players!

Fresno

This was such a busy weekend I had no time to blog.

Last Thursday, my plan was to leave Stockton and stop in Modesto or Merced and play for the day. Then I planned to arrive late in the evening at my daughter’s home in Fresno. As I started driving I realized I was excited to see her and I “passed” on poker in Modesto & Merced. I arrived late in the afternoon and my daughter Carrie, her husband David and I went out for a Mexican Dinner It was sure good to see them both..

The next day I rented a car in Fresno, had lunch with Dave and then when Carrie got off work, her and I headed for San Diego in our Gray, Ford Taurus rental with Pokey the dog and his friend Gracey, the wiener dog. They were both in kennels in the back seat, facing each other for entertainment. Eight hours later we all arrived at my home in San Diego. (Imperial Beach Area) Traffic was horrid as soon as we got to L.A. It took an hour just from Burbank to Buena Park.

It was sure good to be with Caren for the weekend. It didn’t seem like very much time at all before we had to leave again on Monday afternoon to get Carrie back to Fresno for her work on Tuesday.

We did manage to get in two different tournaments at two casinos in San Diego over the weekend. Saturday night we played at Viejas in a $70 tournament with about 125 players. I made a couple of poor moves near the end to force myself out when I didn’t need to.

The first one was understandable the second not so much. I was at the third table as the chip leader of the tournament. When the short stack of the table was the big blind I picked up pocket tens in middle position. So I shoved all in to isolate him. I did, and he showed down Ace-Queen. He picked up a Queen on the turn and I didn’t improve. I lost 40% of my stack on that hand. Then a little later we consolidated down to two tables.

When there were 15 people left I figured I better make a play so I raised 3x the blind with 5,6, suited. The big blind called me, and the flop was a K,6,J. He checked and I put in half my stack to his re-raise, which would have put me all-in. I backed down and folded. I went out two hands later with an AK that didn’t improve and lost to a pair.

This was a case where I could have “coasted” to the final table, but I wanted to win, and I know you have to get aggressive and sometimes lucky at that stage of the tournament. I am second guessing myself with that approach so close to the final table. This was a tournament where the blinds doubled every fifteen minutes, and I wonder if it isn’t better to just squeak to the final table and then do the “all-in with any A or K” and see if you get lucky. I will need to give this a lot more thought.

The best part of Saturday night was when our Son Jonathan came to play with Carrie and me in the tournament. We all had dinner with Caren before the tournament at the Casino. It was so nice to have our whole family together. Caren got a little lucky on the penny slots and gave them each $20 and covered ½ my tournament entry. Overall, it was an enjoyable, memorable night together.

Sunday found out sorting and cleaning out our belongings from a water leak into our garage. It ruined some of our stored items and destroyed the ceiling and wall with mold damage while we have been gone. This is an interesting story I will tell later of dueling insurance companies and real estate developers I will tell at a later time.

After running a few more errands with Caren, it was time for Carrie and I to head for my “home casino” Sycuan. I bought in for both Carrie and I into the evening tournament and she went out in the first ½ hour playing a little too loose. I held on until the field of 250 was narrowed to about 60 and was card dead most of the tournament. I did get a lucky break where I was 4X the blinds and I went all-in with an Ace-Seven. Called by a Ace-Queen and a KJ I was looking like I would be walking this hand. The flop came 7,10,4 and I was actually ahead! The turn card was a Queen as I stood to go the river produced another 7 giving me 777. I played another 45 minutes until I went all-in on an AK that ran into AA and I was out.

I got on a cash table a few minutes later and went up and down with my $100 buy-in and then another $50 went on to the table. I played ok, but I ran into AA with AK again and lost my $100. I built back up to $150 when I ended up with AK on the Big Blind.

I played a little ½ NL and ended up losing my buy-in on another bad beat. Carrie and I decided we both had enough and headed back home for the night.

Monday, Caren went in to work early and then met us for lunch in Mission Valley at Carrie and her favorite eatery: Pat & Oscars. We chose Pat’s & Oscar’s for two reasons. The first was they love their salads. The second is we could sit outside and the dogs could join us.

After lunch we said good bye and Carrie, the dogs, and I headed up Interstate 15 toward L.A. I was dreading driving through L.A. in the middle of the day. So, we thought we could miss the most of it by going up Interstate 15 and then cutting across 210 through Pasadena. Carrie used to live in that area, and the closer we got to 210 we realized we were going to have a lot of traffic in Pasadena at the time we were to arrive there.

I decided to go the back way, by continuing up 15 to US395 and going across Hwy 58 to Bakersfield and then north to Fresno. Eight hours later we arrived at Carrie’s home after having to deal with some Highway construction and frequent stops to walk the dogs.

Now I needed to “gear up” to make some money playing poker, while I am here in Fresno.