I try to be a nice guy.  I treat everyone with kindness and respect
until they give me a reason to do otherwise.  Still, I seem to have
unwittingly make a couple people dislike me, and that's sad.

First, there's the renowned Las Vegas gambling author/publisher who I
wrote about in the WSOP-2002 Report as having "accidentally/carelessly
exposed cards" in the 30/60 game.  Now the man won't even speak to me.
We got heads-up in the blinds once this trip, and before looking at my
hand I gave him a questioning look, whereupon he said "I play."  OK,
fine.  But then I noticed that he chops with everyone else.  Couple days
later I raised his BB from my SB, and he threw away, then another player
told me "He Chops," but the gentleman responded that "I don't chop with
HIM."  Ouch.

Then there's the Vegas Local whose name I really don't know, but who
people seems to call "Karate Dan."  I'd seen this guy around in the room
for a few years, but had never met, played with, or spoken to him.
Then, very late one night two years ago, Mrs. Rock and I cashed out and
were hanging around just outside the room for a few minutes, when this
guy comes up to me, tells me a few "good reasons" why I should loan him
$3,000, and assures me that "You won't be sorry."  I politely informed
him that it wasn't going to happen, and he went away.  We returned for
WSOP last year, and someone mentioned that the guy had been 86'd for
some kind of misbehavior.  But then we returned this year, and he was
back, apparently having been reinstated, and I wound up facing him in
the 80 game several times.  Wow.  He turned out to be one of the most
unpleasantly vituperative people ever, heaping verbal abuse on any
player or dealer who displeased him.  The clincher:  this guy's
demeanor, appearance and thick accent combined to make me assume that he
comes from "Transylvania," but then someone said that he's Israeli.
Ouch.  Almost made me ashamed to be a Jew.

(Many people think of "Transylvania" as a mythical place, home of
Dracula, and that's how I mean it, with no disrespect for the real
Romanian city.)

Then there's the guy from here in Seattle, but who was parked at
Bellagio all the time we were there.  Some folks rather unkindly call
this guy by the name of the particular amphibian reptile that he kinda
resembles.  I wouldn't do that, but, OK, I admit it, I do dislike the
guy because (a) One time he approached Mrs. Rock and told her that "If
anything ever happened to Sarge, I'd sure like to get with you," or
words to that effect (she says she was barely able to suppress the urge
to puke, and hasn't spoken to him since) and (b) When he loses in the
Seattle 20/40 (a frequent occurrence, as he's a rather bad player with a
big tilt factor) and we're in the game, he starts complaining loudly
about husband, wife, and collusion.

Finally, there's "The Gypsy," (Seattle) a heavy 30-something
angle-shooting fish, who loudly complained one time that the player, a
friend of mine who had just beaten him for a pot, was "a fuckin' gook."
Since that day I don't speak to or chop with The Gypsy, and it didn't
take him long to detect my disdain, such that we're, uh, not exactly
friendly.  Shame.

Zero Tolerance

On this trip I also managed to piss off more than a few people by
expecting Bellagio floorpersons and dealers to enforce their own house
rules.  Some nerve, huh?  I'm talking about the English-only rule.  Most
times people at the table converse in non-English it's seems like
they're just innocently discussing something unrelated to the hand in
play, and I used to just keep my mouth shut and ignore it.  A few time
in this year's WSOP side action, however, it was obvious that the
non-English speaker WAS telling the listener what he held, or had held
and folded, in a blatant effort to cheat.  At those times I was as
outraged as the dealers were oblivious, and eventually I adopted a zero
tolerance policy.

If I wasn't in the hand, then I still kept my mouth shut.  But if I was
involved, then I gave the dealer an intense stare and maybe a couple
verbal hints that they should enforce the rule.  That pretty much never
did any good, so then, when the action came to me I stopped the game by
refusing to act, and politely asked the dealer to "Please call the
floorperson."

The first time this occurred it happened that the shift boss was nearby
when the dealer called "Floor on Table 1!," and so Mrs. Lederer came to
the table to see what the problem was.  I said to her:  "I just have two
questions.  First, do you still have an English-only rule here?"  "Yes,
of course," she replied.  "OK, then, two, can we please play by the
rules tonight?"

That became my SOP for such occurrences, and it always resulted in the
floorperson reminding the table to "Speak only English during play,"
then walking away.  That always put a stop to the practice, for, on
average, two minutes, then it would resume.  One time I also told the
floor what a rare privilege it had been to hear simultaneous non-English
in three different languages during a single hand (no kidding- Spanish,
Chinese and Farsi.)

I guess I resent having to say anything at all about it.  I guess I
expect the house dealer to enforce the house rules without any prompting
from a nobody like me.  Still, I also understand that the dealer, who
works for tokes and should prefer to avoid pissing anyone off, has a
conflicting interests in this matter.  Therefore, I do kinda sorta
almost understand their reluctance to enforce this rule, but it still
pisses me off.
--
3-Betting the Turn with Nothing

Norway open-raises 2 off the button, and I three-bet right behind him
with As 9s.  Flakey move?  Yeah, maybe, but you can only let these guys
push you around for so long, ya know?

Headsup, and the board comes:  7h 8s 3c, Ts, Kh

He check-calls my bet on the flop, then check-raises me on the turn, and
I raise his ass right back.  I mean, just because I have no pair, it's
not like I have *absolutely* nothing, is it?  Lots of outs.  Plus,
knowing this guy, I may well have the best hand right now; he's WAY more
likely to raise with nothing than I am.  :-)  So I'm kinda flying by the
seat of my pants here, playing on instinct, but sometimes that just
feels so right and works so well.  (Let's momentarily forget about those
times that it blows up in your face, OK?)

It felt like I had a direct line to Miss Cleo when he simply mucked his
hand upon seeing the river card.  I was so grateful that I even showed
him my nothing.
---
Two Big Hands

Internet Wunderkind open-raises and I three-bet with AK.  Headup.

Board comes AKK, K, 3

He check-raises me on the flop and I just call.  Don't want to scare
him.  Yet.

But then he bets that turn card (!) and calls my raise and my river
bet.  ty.
--
Chilean player open-raises early with what turned out to be 99, and I
call from the middle with KhQh.  That's normally a fold, but this is a
loose juicy game, and we're likely to get good volume.  Sure enough, we
see the flop 6-way.

Board comes AKK, 2, 2.  I bet flop, turn and river and respectively get
4, 3, and 3 callers on those rounds.  Real good game.  Have no clue what
these people are calling with.

---
Online Security

Everyone knows that it should be far easier to collude in online than in
live games.  But have you thought about how it should also be far easier
to catch colluders in online than in live games?  Seems to me that it
should, at least in theory.

In the casino, they have surveillance cameras in the ceiling looking
down at the table, and employees watching the game.  They can see things
like card switching, pot shorting, maybe even signaling, if it's
blatant.  But if you muck your QQ just because your partner has signaled
you that he holds AA, the camera and the dealer will never know.

Figuratively speaking, the online cardroom has (should have)
surveillance cameras on the FLOOR, looking UP at the table, and it's a
GLASS TABLE.  Those "cameras" WILL see you muck that QQ, or make other,
less obvious but equally incriminating plays based on your partner's
hands.  Good software to analyze hand histories and quickly identify
collusion cheats should be in use at the online sites, and I feel pretty
confident that it is at sites like Paradise and Stars.  Party?  Who
knows?

I recently emailed support at Poker Stars with a report of vaguely
suspected possible collusion in a game there.  Sent my note around
midnight, and got a reply almost immediately, saying they'd look into it
and get back too me.  Next morning I got a polite and lengthy reply from
"Conrad" that described in detail the analysis he had performed to
convince him that my suspicion was groundless.  To say that I was
impressed by this would be an understatement.
---
Gourmet Dining

Before Bellagio opened, the Mirage didn't allow food at the table.  I
don't know if that's still the policy there.  I do remember some years
ago trying to take my chili dog to my 20/40 seat at the Horseshoe, and
getting yelled at by a floorman.  "Where do you think you are,
California?"

Bellagio, on the other hand, has become as much a dining room as a poker
room.  In the top section they just have the floorman call room service,
or phone ahead and send a chip runner to the coffee shop, snack bar, or
Chinese restaurant for takeout.  Room Service is the most elegant, and
at all times or the day or night waitpersons wheel in white tablecloth
covered carts of $39 New York steak, $75 lobster tails, or even $14
bowls of chicken noodle soup.  Me?  I'm too cheap to spend that kind of
money on food, and don't toke well enough get that kind of service, so I
take a walk and get my own takeout.

Couple days before we went home, however, our close friend, a local who
was in the 80 games with us most days, ran into an old friend of his in
the casino.  This old friend is a Baccarat Whale, betting tens of
thousands per hand, and when he saw our pal, he summoned his casino
hosts and told them that he wanted a comp for his old buddy.  When a
Whale asks for a comp, we're not talking about a buffet line pass or
coffee shop meal.  Our friend was treated to 3 nights in a suite on the
35th floor (We visited.  VERY impressive.) and 3 days carte blanche food
and beverage anywhere on the property.  He took us to the Chinese place
for lunch, and we *really* pigged out.  Then at midnight we were still
in the game and hungry again, so he ordered up a couple room service
steak dinners, and just that one time I got to live in the manner to
which I would so very much like to become accustomed.

---
Quiet Please!

The Almighty gave us eyelids, and the ability to close our eyes if
there's something we'd rather not see.  So how come we don't have
earlids?  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to "close your ears" on demand?

Sometimes the cacophony of human and sub-human voices in Bellagio Poker
Room can be *really* annoying.  Three different amplified board persons
calling lists, incessant telephone paging, losers bemoaning beats,
dealers calling open seats or for checks, the constant clicking sounds
from manipulation of chips, chips, and more chips, and the guy in the
next seat turning towards you to yell at his buddy three tables away,
oblivious to the auditory nerve damage he's causing you.  Plus the crowd
in the adjacent Sports Book roaring when the Lakers squeak it in at the
last moment.  Sometimes you can't even hear yourself think.

Occasionally I've worn industrial or military earplugs, or sometimes
wearing headphones helps a tiny bit.  But not much.  It's funny how "out
of it" I can be sometimes.  I think of myself as a techie, but sometimes
I really miss the boat.  For instance, we used "Noise Canceling"
microphones in the Army Signal Corps back when Dubya was a
hard-drinkin', coke-snortin' college boy, but I wasn't aware of mass
market noise canceling headphones until I sat next to this Vegas local
wearing a pair from Sharper Image.  They had an on-off slide switch and
LED power indicator on the frame, and he let me try them.  They sounded
no different than regular headphones, and the LED didn't light up at
all.

"I think your battery is dead," I told him.

"Battery?"  He hadn't noticed the small AAA compartment built-in to the
headphones that he'd used for two months, and it wasn't dead; it was
missing, never installed.  His itty-bitty MP3 player used AAA too, and
he had an extra, so we put it in, and the LED lighted brightly.  Bingo.
With or without a music audio source plugged in, the effect was dramatic
and startling.  Ambient noise seemed cut about 80%, reducing the
annoying roar to a quiet mumble.  No kidding, they were amazingly
effective.  Also sturdy but not too heavy or bulky, clever folding band,
comfortably padded.  Real nice.

Did some online shopping after returning home, and saw the $299 Bose and
several other brands of NC Phones.  Found one place with the exact same
$49.99 Sharper Image set my friend had, and that I tried and liked so
much, but without the Sharper Image label, and for $26.50.  Bingo
again.  For that price I got two pair, so Mrs. Rock could have a set
too.
---
Hopeless Chasers

I open-raise late with Th, Qs, and the BB calls with 6c, 3c.

Board comes:  5h 5c 5s, 8c, Tc  ...and he chases me down to make a
backdoor flush.  That's right, set on board on the flop, likely to be
drawing so dead that his "hand" has been cremated and the ashes
scattered, he check-calls my flop and turn bets, and "gets there."

Then he bets it!  At this point I have to wonder if he may have been
slowplaying a 5, or a big pair, all along.  I thought I really liked
that river card, but I can only call his "surprise" bet.  Guess I'd have
raised him if I were a better player.

Then he turns over his worthless flush, and I managed to suppress the
laugh and just smile.  If the river hadn't filled me up- if his baby
backdoor flush had won- then I'd have to suppress a scream, and try to
give the same smile.
---
Mrs. Rock and I stayed in Vegas too long- 29 nights-  and slept too
little, got "run down," and both got sick when it was time to leave
town.  So we stayed one more day, but then hit the road anyway, and had
a rather miserable 1150 mile drive home.  Then we hibernated a week or
so to recuperate.  Since then we haven't been to the local cardrooms
even once.  It's just too hard to tear oneself away from the juicy games
online.