Tuesday, March 9, 2004.. Live Tourney

Tonight was the $100 HE tourney. We get 1000 chips, limit for the first hour, then NLHE. I did manage to win a couple of hands, post flop, so I'm not losing every, single hand anymore. My losing streak, however, is continuing severely.

I was seated at table one, the crazy table. Fortunately, there weren't as many loose calls. The locals at the crazy table don't call as much during a freeze-out as a rebuy tourney.

I was dealt AA rather quickly. I raised and got one caller. The flop was perfect: ATx, I believe. I bet, he called. Can you guess what happened? Yes, it truly did happen, he drew for runner, runner perfect. He had to get a QJ to make a straight. He had K8o and drew to two perfect, running cards. And he got them. What is new?

Not long afterwards, I got AJs. Only the blinds stayed in. The flop was good, J high. I bet, bet, bet, Betty called, called called, making her gutshot on the river with Q9o. What is new?

My KK actually stood up. The flop was full of rags, and no one called my flop bet.

I was disappointed hearing a report about Carl. I have been really admiring his play during this WPT challenge. He has not only made a lot of money, but he is first in points. Then Glenn told me a horror story. Carl folded QQ btf in order to get into the top 20. Eeeeeek! Carl is so far ahead of the rest of us, there is no way he is not going to get a WPT seat. Even if he sat out of every tourney from now on. He folded QQ???? Please say it ain't so!

One of the things that separates the Belle from other cardrooms is that the dealers argue with the players more than normal. In Vegas and California, they usually just keep out of arguments. Well, at the Belle they are spoiled. They have never had to deal with many abusive, nasty players. So instead, they become the abusive, nasty ones. You read my report on Ed yesterday, so you know what I am talking about. Those of you who have read my reports since moving to AZ have obviously seen lots of this nastiness by dealers.

Most of the dealers at the Belle are absolutely fabulous. Please don't misunderstand me. Some of them, however, know of no other place besides Laughlin. They have never been peed on by WCP who are stuck. No one has ever shoved a lit cigarette into their arm, burning them, scarring them for life because they dealt the player a bad session. They are not usually hit upside the head, kicked under the table, shoved into the table from behind by losing players.

So some of them actually get so spoiled that they take out their moods on their regular customers, customers who pay their salary (tips). Customers who are pleasant and kind.

I'm not trying to say that I'm one of these customers. Believe me, I'm always busting their chops about raking too high, not following the $1.00 max rake promotion, etc. I'm always yelling about them not catching someone shorting the pot, palming their blind back into their stacks, etc.

Anyway, there is an older, snappy dealer named Lavenna who has decided that dealing at the Belle is like dealing in hell. She is 65, and has terrible mood swings. She can be nice, but most of the time she is whining and complaining during her downs about what a miserable job she has, and how she wants to retire, etc, etc. So she should retire. Why should we be subjected to her mood swings? She thinks she has it so bad in Laughlin, at the Belle? She knows jack. If it is so bad, why are you dealing, you twit?

So she brought her rain cloud over to table one, during the tourney. As I looked down to jot some notes from a hand I'd just played, she moved the button twice. Instead of me having the button, I was the cutoff, and Ionizer Bob, who was severely shortstacked, had to take the BB one hand early. The guy to my left, who plays at Commerce everyday, got out of the SB, and was made the button. Lavenna started dealing, and when I looked up, I told her to stop, that I was the button, not the cutoff.

She snapped at me, "No you weren't, Felicia! You were just the button!" She also calls me "Fel E 'SHUH," which I cannot stand. She will not say my name correctly. I don't mind that so much in people I actually like, but in people I do not like, I constantly correct them when they say my name the wrong way. No matter how many times I say, "Fel E see ah," she says "Fel E 'SHUH."

I kept trying to get her to stop dealing, she kept snapping at me. Finally I threw up my hands. No one would say anything, no one would support my claim.

I sarcastically said, "Yeah, that is why I paid my SB, then couldn't even complete, because I had 74o! But you're probably right and I'm wrong, I ALWAYS put up a green chip before you deal, then fold to 1/2 bet on the BUTTON with 74o!" She continued to argue with me, refused to bring back the cards, refused to listen.

Poor Bob was in the one seat, and not paying enough attention to realize he'd been cheated.

As soon as the hand was over, the guy to my left, the bright player from Commerce said, "You were right, I was supposed to be the SB." He knew it as well as he knows the palm of his hand. But angleshooting at Commerce is considered "good poker," so no way he was going to do the honorable thing and back me up. After all, he got to miss his SB.

That made the player in the ten seat think about it. He was an obvious newbie, as you will see when I describe the hand below, and suddenly said, "Oh, my gawd! You were right! I never paid my BB!"

What do you think Lavenna did? Apologize? Call the floor? Yeah, right. She thinks she is God's gift to the Belle. And believe me, Lavenna is never, ever wrong (LOL).

Just a few hands later, a freak occurrence happened. I was the button, the guy on my left, the Commerce player, was the SB, and the ten seat was the BB. The ten seat was extremely new, not understanding much about a tournament, or casino poker in general. He had made "motions" with his hands, motions that would indicate a check, when he had no intention of checking. He had made string bets and raises. The typical stuff; there are usually several of them in every tourney.

Anyway, this was the hand that was very odd. Both the nine and ten were involved. The nine being a very experienced player, used to using all of the edges he could get. The ten being a newbie. On the flop, the nine made a medium sized bet, maybe 300 in chips, when the BB was 100. The ten called rather quickly. The nine had flopped two pair, A2. The other flop card was a king. The turn counterfeited the nine, bringing another king. The nine checked. The ten was mumbling under his breath, checking his hole cards for perhaps the fifth time. He distinctly said something along the lines of, "Blah, blah, I'm going to have to go all-in on this hand, aren't I, blah blah?"

Immediately, the nine seat put out all of his chips and said, "I call that all-in bet!"

The ten was doomed. The dealer was very experienced, having been a pro player before dealing. She knew that the ten had just committed suicide. I knew it, too. I had to acknowledge that I'd heard the ten seat say what he'd said. She had to acknowledge that to the floor, as well. We both looked at each other, figuring that the nine had used the angle, now knowing that the ten was extremely weak, probably on a draw, and had screwed himself by mumbling about going all-in under his breath. We knew that the nine played at Commerce every day, and would exploit the ten, the ignorance of his statement. But we were powerless to do anything but force him to make that all-in.

In a way, it's better that he was taught a lesson now, in a puny $100 tournament, instead of being allowed to let it go, and making the same mistakes over and over again. I felt bad for him, but on the other hand, people cannot just keep saying things that include "all-in" under their breath, nor can they just be allowed to keep making string bets and raises, hand motions that would indicate a check, etc. If they don't get busted in the lower buy-in tourneys, someone is going to bust them later, for a whole lot more money.

So maybe the nine took a bit of advantage of a newbie. I might have, too. I don't know. The nine was a nice guy, he had been playing all week at the Belle, and was never out of line or rude (odd for a Commerce player). He just wanted to get away from LA for a week. I have never seen him act out of order. I probably would have let the guy go, but I would have been extremely candid about the novice moves he was making, and how he was going to get busted on it by players who weren't so understanding.

I did manage to make it into the top 20, for WPT points, but as I have pointed out, I am so far behind Doc Campbell that I don't have a chance. I am solely playing for money. It wasn't tough to make it into the top 20, only 29 players entered the tourney, lol!

The guy in nine knocked me out, when I was forced to defend my BB. He was UTG and raised BTF, but I had to try to double up at that time, or I had no chance of even making the money, much less winning. Like I said, he is a nice guy. He even apologized for knocking me out.

--------------------------------------------

The Belle is starting construction next week on the expansion to the poker room. Now it looks like we are going to get 2-3 tables versus the 3-4 we were hoping for. I guess the management isn't willing to take out any more slots than necessary, lol.

At any rate, this is a welcome change. Even two tables will make a huge improvement. We only have 10 now, so that will be at least 12, and James says he might put back in one of the ten handed HE tables that he had replaced with a nine handed table a couple of months ago. If so, that means that maybe we can squeeze one more table into the new section, giving us 13 tables. I hope so!

The next section will be non-smoking, since the ceiling is lower in that area, and it will be more confined. This is a welcome change, too, as things have been nuts with the smoking/non-smoking issue at the Belle in recent weeks.