Running Well at THE BP

In my previous blog I talked about the random, useless things I run well at. Well, I got to thinking about it and it reminded me of a fun night in Vegas towards the end of the summer when I ran well at something equally ascinine:

I had started working on the Bellagio Cup, but the WSOP was still going, so we had finished up at the Rio and Adam, Jill, Brett, Elissa, and I met up with Court back at the Fontana Lounge at Bellagio to hang out since it was still kind of early. BJ was still there finishing up chip counts and such and the whole lot of us decided to head over to Bally's for my new favorite table game----Texas Hold Em Bonus Poker.

A quick primer: THEBP is a table game version of hold em in which all of the players are playing against the dealer, but not against themselves. Everyone antes a minimum bet before the cards are dealt and, if they like their hole cards, they pay double the ante as their flop bet. The weird thing is that you can show the other people playing the game what your hole cards are, which makes your decision making a ton easier. The flop is then dealt and you have the option to bet or check based on whether or not you think you have the dealer bet. Same on the turn, but there is not a round of betting on the river, the dealer just turns up your cards and then their cards to see if you beat them. If you do, your bets, except the ante, are matched by the house. If you lose, house gets everything.

This is not a comprehensive guide and I have left a lot out, but you hopefully have a basic enough understanding to appreciate the story. Here goes...

I was not playing because the minimum bet was $10, which is a little too rich for my poor white trash blood, but Court, Elissa, and Brett were playing while the rest of us watched. I was standing behind Brett during a hand where he only had eight high by the river. No pair, no nothing. However, I just had a feeling and I looked at him and said rather convincingly, "eight high is good."

When the dealer flipped up her hand and showed us 2-7, eight high was indeed good and we marveled at my abilities. Perhaps Adam put it best when he exclaimed, "oh my God, Jess just soul read that dealer."

Well, a few hands later, Court showed us that he had been dealt pocket queens.

"How am I going to lose this one?" he joked. After all, he had not been faring very well thus far.

"I am guessing there will be both an ace and a king on the flop," BJ replied.

"No," I said, "there is going to be straight on the board.

The flop comes 3-4-5 and I laugh and look at BJ, enjoying that the straight was still a possibility. It got funnier when a 6 hit on the turn, and the 2 on the river sent BJ into near-shock at my clairvoyance. The best part? The dealer had a 2 and, if it weren't for the river, Court, who had been betting every street, would have lost everything rather than pushed on the hand.
Like I said, at least it is nice to run well at something. If only it could be like that when I play THEBP myself though.

Big Phan of Hand-For-Hand

If you made it through to the end of my last, epic blog, you may remember me discussing Hand-For-Hand coverage. You may also recall that when it got down to one table Andy and I traded off transcribing the hands. We could have done more than one hand at a time if we had liked, but trading off every other one kept us from having to stand for long stretches of time...or at least, in theory that was the plan.

On occassion, I run well. Very rarely do I run well at something that matters, like poker for money or my love life. I run well at relatively useless things like fantasy sports leagues in which no money is on the line, free poker at bars, games of tic tac toe, or finding pennies. On this fine day in July though, I began to run well at Hand-For-Hand. How do you run well at Hand-For-Hand you may ask? Well, here's how...

In poker, sometimes hands are over very quickly. Bob raises from the cut off and everyone folds. He wins the blinds and antes. Other times, hands take longer. Heck, every once in a while we even see flops, turns, and once in a blue moon a river. I have been told sometimes there is even a point in the hand where the players involved turn over their cards and a winner is declared.

I did not encounter many of these situations during Bellagio Cup Hand-For-Hand experience. Most of my hands were over preflop after one raise and, if I was unlucky if I encountered a reraise with some thought before the initial raiser folded. Andy, on the other hand, had to deal with the wrath of John Phan. Many of you may know that Phan is notorious for just how long he takes to make decisions. I often wonder what a day in the life of John Phan must be like. Does he tank on everything? If so, can you imagine him at McDonalds? How long does John Phan stand in front of the closet every morning, contemplating what to wear? What about really important decisions like who to marry or what to name your kid? Do these types of decisions take him literally years, if not decades, to decide upon?

Sorry about the John Phan tangent, I am just morbidly curious. Anyways, I would literally not even write down half the hands because it was easier for me to just verbally dictate the hands to BJ. I would tap Andy and he would look at me with indignation and say, "are you serious?" I would then sit down and 10-12 minutes would pass before Andy would return with the previous hand. I'd get up, watch the next hand, and return less than 30 seconds later, provoking Andy to become more and more cranky.

"I used to like you, you know."

"I was going to say it will be sad working without you until December, but I take it back.

"I hate the new girl."

At one point Phan tanked for, I kid you not, over ten minutes. Granted, it was a fascinating hand that I later learned was a pretty ballsy bluff on the part of Mike Watson, but that entire time Andy was languishing in Hand-For-Hand hell while I sat at the table sipping on my strawberry julius, reveling in the fact that I may not always win many coin flips in poker, but at least I run well at something.