Usually, the two far right lanes in front of the Bellagio on Las Vegas Boulevard are full of idling cars watching or waiting for the fountain show that is put on every fifteen minutes. I had never before arrived at the Bellagio this late, and I guess the last show must be before 1am, so I got to drive right along the far right lane and straight into the parking garage, which was pretty strange. Also, I was thinking "what am I doing here? I meant to go to the Wynn! Oh, well. I'm here now; I might as well just go in." Later, I'll be very glad I did.
As I'm waiting for my table, I hear somebody yell "Hey Boston!" in my general direction. As it is not uncommon for me to where a Red Sox hat at the table, I turn around and see an attractive Franch Canadian woman I had played with the night before calling to me from the rail. Being French Canadian, she takes frequent smoking breaks. Smoking is not allowed in the poker room, so she was just outside it. I walked over to her.
"What did you have on that hand?" she asks me.
"What?"
"I couldn't sleep last night. What did you have on that hand I folded last night?"
The previous night I had called one of her raises pre-flop with KJ diamonds and the turn had two kings and two diamonds, one of them an ace. I checked and called assuming she had an ace, and then on the river (a blank) I bet out $85 into a $150 pot because I assumed she would just check it down if she had an ace. After thinking for about two minutes she laid the hand down and asked what I had. I told her "I had a flush draw" but nobody really believed me.
Although I couldn't imagine why this would keep someone up at night, I figured I was unlikely to see this girl again so I told her the truth: I did have a flush draw, but I also had three kings. She told me she had had pocket tens.
At this point I was called to my 2-5 NL table, where there are two more attractive girls playing. Most tables have either zero or one, but two is not all that uncommon. There are at least three reasons it is good to sit at a table with attractive women. First, they are attractive. Second, I think other players at the table tend to play worse. Most importantly, usually girls are not particularly good, and they nearly always fall into one of two categories: they either play extremely tight and passive, meaning you know you can confidently fold if they ever bet, or they vastly overvalue their hands, meaning they will pay you off if you catch top pair or better. This second type is slightly less common, if only because they don't last at the tables very long. Unfortunately, this table is a "must-move" table and before long I am moved to a new table. I get into a conversation with the guy to my left, who likes to point out any hot women who walk by (this is common practice at the poker tables, actually. Personally, I prefer to pay attention to the game, but really, I can't concentrate on the game 100% of the time anyway, so I don't mind too much). All of a sudden there is shouting behind me and I see people standing up to see what is going on. I turn around to see two men fighting over by the 10-20 NL table. One of them already has his white shirt pulled over his head hockey-fight style, but both of them are still throwing and connecting punches. I see a floorman just chuckling at all this, which I find odd because, well, isn't it his job to try to stop this or at least call security? After a another ten or twnety seconds the two men were finally pulled apart. A crowd had formed so I'm not exactly sure if one of them "won" the fight, but I saw the guy who had had his shirt over his head going to the cashier and then leaving, and he looked like he was fine. At this point a single security guy showed up, which was pretty funny in a "too little too lat"e kind of way, and also for its stark contrast to "Ocean's 11," where they made it sound like security is ready to pounce at a moment's notice. I guess that's only when there is money at stake.
Back at my table the players are all talking about the fight. Someone says, "I played with that white guy before, he was really cool actually." Another person says, "yeah, I talked to the black guy at a table once, and he was a nice guy, too." Hmmmm. I am a bit skeptical and ask "they're BOTH nice guys?" "Uhhh.... I guess I didn't really get to know him all that well." Later, I ask somebody what happened, and supposedly there were some harsh words exchanged at the table, the white guy got up, and when he return he was holding a chair, which he used to hit the black guy over the head. The black guy got up and was able to pull his adversary's shirt over his head, and I guess I pretty much saw the rest. Frankly, though, I'm not really sure about this part of the story or who actually hit who first.
All of this happened in my first forty-five minutes at the Bellagio. It was now probably around 2:15 am. I'm going to stop this post here, but I'll be posting the next one soon because things were just about to get interesting.
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