Of Red-headed Sluts and Dead Live Play

BB's to go: 567.3 or 56.73

Came home from work yesterday with an itch to play the Hardware Bar freeroll. The Mistress dispensed mercy and let me go, after I cleaned the bathroom and put the Little General to bed.

The metro-sexual bouncer waved me through without even looking at my ID. Must be getting old. I walk past the band going through its soundcheck. Now I know I'm getting old because I don't recognize the song they're blasting out.

The tournament starts at nine, but I show up at eight. Usually, it's crowded by now and a bit iffy as to whether there's any seats left, but tonight it's empty. As in, I'm the only one in the back room/poker hall, besides the waitresses.

Here's another hint that you're getting old. When you say to yourself "Where did all these hot girls come from, and where were they when I was single?" As annoying as the Hardware Bar can be, the waitresses are one shining positive.

They're just hot, freaking grade-A hotties. Long legs, big boobies, pretty, just the right amount of ink. Shocker- they dress in next to nothing. Shocker- I'm nervous just being in the room with them.

MMM...shocker.

Even the (relatively) plain-jane bartender is smoking. She's the only one not dressed like she'll be dancing on a pole later, but she's still looking good and sporting ample cleavage.

(My best friend in the world would, when he was drunk, growl "Ample boobies!" like a caveman at any well-developed chick that walked by. He never got laid much.)

I actually have a some what coherent conversation with the bartender that doesn't make her smile politely and walk away. Finally, some other people get there and a Hardware Bar Personality Type A sits next to me.

Type A: Young, college slacker/hipster. Probably pretty smart, except for trying to be the next Doyle Brunson instead of getting a real job.

Type A sits next to me and I find he's probably more socially inept than I am. Doesn't let me finish a sentence, talks like he was on the committee that originally invented poker, is generally a doofus. He probably doesn't get any either.

At any rate, Type A tells me how he's been playing for a month and recently won a tournament in a points league. He tells me how he completed in the small blind with 54, then hit two pair on the flop like its a sign of the Second Coming. Then he tells me again. Then he tells his buddy about it.

I try to give him some advice, as this is the first time he's played at the Hardware. Basically, I tell him it's better to play tight, because no one folds.

"Yes they do," Type A says, "If you bet enough."

"No, they don't. It's a free tournament, alot of people don't care and are willing too..."

"It's two-hundred fifty dollars!"

I don't care that much, so I don't bother trying to explain why a winner take all freeroll for 250 with over a hundred players isn't that big of a deal. Instead, I go on to say that the blind structure makes it hard to have a big stack by the time you reach the final table. Which I've done twice, I make sure to add.

"Oh no, it's easy," Type A says. "All you need is to get the cards."

Indeed.

Behind me, I hear another sentence I really never expected to hear in my pathetically un-hip life.

"Do you need a red-headed slut?"

I turn, to see one of the uberest of the uber-hot waitresses. I catch my breath. I rip my eyes from her Ample Boobies and check her hair.

Pretty, but light brown. Damn.

I see the tray of shooters she's holding and I piece things together. Red-headed slut=drink, not Red-headed slut= most amazing, unbelievable offer I'm going to have to turn down.

I do however, reach way back into the humor bag and say "Hon, who doesn't need a red-headed slut?"

***************

I'm seated at a table with mostly Type A players, with me and another Type M player (middle age, middle class) and an odd Hardware Bar anomaly: the mother half of a mother-son team.

I'm amped a bit, so I decide to practice my chip riffling before we start to play. I'm getting pretty good with three chip stacks. Then someone riffles a five chip stack, someone else riffles stacks with both hands, and the mother starts riffling. Okay, I get the hint.

First hand, AJ soo-oo-ooted. (I've blogged long enough to use that term, haven't I?) I'm on the button and I double the big blind, no big deal. Type A (in this case, also means a-hole) goes all-in.

"This is a lesson that you never raise my big blind," he says to me as I go into the tank. Fucker. How can I put him on a hand? Literally the first hand I've played with him. I know, know he's probably bluffing. I remember some poker psychology I read about how many people in a tourney are scared to gamble at first, because of the expected disappointment of busting out so early.

I look at those two beautiful cards like I know I'd never see them again and mucked them. Big blind showed me his 9-5 offsuit.

My timidity must have offended the poker gods, because I get every combination of offsuit, unconnected 10 or lower cards for the next hour. Oh, excuse me, I got A3 sooted once and had to fold it when I got re-raised.

And yet, I survived the break-up of that table. I had a choice of which one to go to and picked the closest one without bothering to look at the stacks or the players. There were huge stacks and good players. One Type G player (gansta) and the young woman who is real good, if a bit TOO tight.

There was also a Type NL player. This is the guy who doesnt' know anything about playing poker, at least playing it live, but is a super-luckbox. He had three racks of chips, but didn't think to put the rack with an open row on the top so that the entire thing is more stable. Need I say his little tower tumbled over into a pot?

He got in an argument when the Type G player asked him to count his chips. "I don't want to," he said. Someone else had to explain to him that he'd just bet enough to put the Type G player all in and the guy wanted to make sure that was the case. Then, when he did count his chips, he forgot how much the red chips were worth and lost count several times. Took at least five minutes for the whole thing to get worked out.

As is my luck, I am destined to be all-in heads up with any Type NL present at the Hardware Bar. I have A10 versus his A6, so I know I'm doomed.

Go figure, he hits his straight and I miss my eight out open ender. Tourist!

Bah! At least the band was playing Nirvana when I left.