Back to the tables

Above: The Gold Strike Casino in my rear view mirror. Maybe it should be online poker in my mirror?

"Why you no play poker anymore?"

I was working in my yard yesterday and my Korean neighbor had rolled down her car window to talk to me. Her husband is a pit boss and she doesn't work so she practically lives at the Tunica casinos. I don't remember what I told her, but I started thinking: She's right. Why haven't I played much lately?

I decided to enter the 7 p.m. tournament at the Gold Strike along with 60 other donkeys runners I didn't make it to the second break, so who's the donkey? I'm sure it must have been all bad luck, lol.

One cute hand: a tight player raised from early position and had one caller. The flop was J-10-7 and there was a CB and a call. The turn was a 9 and more betting and raising ensued. The river was an 8, so the final board read J-10-9-8-7, for those of you who are keeping score at home. They both checked and the first guy turned over K-K and the second guy turned over A-A -- your basic split pot.

Sometimes you wonder why players bother to sign up to play. An old guy was sitting next to me in the 9 seat. He made a big bet and got one caller, a young guy. The Flop was ace high, but had two clubs. He bet and was called again. The turn was a third club. He checked and the second player bet big. Now the old guy moved all in. He was quickly called by the younger guy who had a flush, surprise! The old guy showed A-Q for top pair, second kicker with no clubs. Huh??

"That's the second time I've got my aces cracked," he said as he gathered his stuff to leave. "It's just not my night."

Um, you had a pair of aces, but usually getting aces cracked means you had a pocker pair of them, but what do I know.

I played at table 15, but the real excitement of the night was at table 14. I just happened to look over there, and the guy I could see best had six stacks of black chips and a bunch of green ones -- more than $12,000 in chips. Then I looked again -- he also had a huge stack of $100 bills, at least 10 grand worth. WTF?

I wandered over, couldn't resist. It was a badugi game! Huh? The blinds were $50/100 and the minimum buy-in was $2000. The others also had big stacks. I've seen NL games that were this big, but badugi? I can't believe that these guys knew what they were doing. I don't have that kind of money to gamble with them, but it sure made me daydream about what could be.