WillisNYC

The Palms casino near my hotel has a 2/5 NL game with a buy in cap of $1000.  A couple nights ago, I happened to be at a table that saw the biggest 2/5 pot I have ever seen.   Joe Awada was at the table with ‘Jack’, another bracelet winner from last year and the preflop action was very heavy.  Preflop bets of $100-$200 routinely received 3-4 callers because of the crazy action induced mostly by ‘Jack’ who was also the owner of a casino and his daughter. 

Jack opened the betting for $25 on this hand in particular.  He was called by the ‘loose cannon’ of the table and his daughter.  On the button was a tight aggressive player who raised to $150.  All three players called his $150 of course.  The flop was K83 with 2 hearts.  Jack checked and the loose cannon bet $150.   Jack’s daughter pushed all of her $500 worth of chips into the pot at this point.   The button called, Jack folded and the loose cannon called.   The pot now has over $2100 and both remaining players have about 2k remaining in front of them.  Their stacks were  the result of earlier battles with Jack and Joe. 

The turn brought a non heart 6.   Loose cannon checked and the button bet $500.  The loose cannon thought about 2 seconds and shoved.  Now the button showed a pained expression on his face over the difficult decision he has to make.  He has seen the loose cannon win at least one huge pot with 36 offsuit when it hit two pair against an overpair when huge, ($150) preflop action occurred in a hand.   The button went into the tank for about 2 minutes at which point he turned over 2 aces.  No ace of hearts and he tried to get a read on the loose cannon.  No read seemed possible from what I saw.  Another 3 minutes or so passed and button finally said, ‘I call’.  A non heart 7 hit the river and neither the loose cannon or Jack’s daughter immediately flip their cards.   The aces held!  After some prodding the loose cannon flips 9T hearts and Jack’s daughter shows Q4 hearts.   The button scoops a huge 2/5 pot which may well have been the biggest of his life!  He treated it as such since he left the table within one orbit of stacking it.

Late last night, I went to sleep after playing poker at about 2am in the morning.  The next thing I hear is the ringing of my room phone.  Not my cell phone, but my room phone… no one knows my room phone number.  WTF it is like 3 am?  I pick up and it is the front desk of my hotel.   “There is a bomb threat and you must evacuate your room immediately!’, says the voice from the front desk.   ‘OH Shit’, I think to myself. 

I hang up and start stumbling around looking for my clothes.  I get outside in my flip flops, shorts and a t-shirt.  There are at least 8 police cars in the parking lot and yellow tape everywhere!  ‘Damn, no shit bomb scare here!’  I stumble toward a police officer who asks my name.  I tell him and he says go stand over there in the parking lot on the other side of the tape.

In that parking lot is one lonely looking fella sitting on the curb. ‘What’s up?’ I ask.  ‘I found dynamite in my room!’ comes the reply.  “WHAT?” ‘ I checked in to my hotel today around 3 PM and then went to play poker.  I just came back and under my TV I found four sticks of dynamite!  Also some kind of timing device I think.  The police think it is real because they ran like hell when I showed it to them!’  ‘Wow!’, I reply. ‘Whose mafia wife have you been sleeping with dude?’, he laughs and replies, ‘I have no idea!’

I start talking to some other newly arriving hotel refugees.  Half of them are twenty something young men and they all seem to play poker!    Wish I had brought my bankroll and cards into the parking lot!  We could have had quite the game. 

The bomb squad finally shows up about an hour later.  They remove the bomb and the police tell us we can go back.   Talk about anticlimactic….