09:15 (am) Tuesday, 04/02/2013 Golden Nugget Casino room #19-107:
My phone rings. Thankfully I still have one earbud in so I hear it and
can pull the cord like a fishing line to find my phone. Must be some
emergency - everyone I know knows that I'm in Las Vegas so they wouldn't
be ringing me at this backward hour for nothing. It's Vegas! I got to
bed at 7am!
But it's THE call - I'm "the chosen one"!!! Thank goodness Tina
(hopefully soon to be my new boss), is quite easy and relaxed to talk
with. I somehow sound coherent and set 2pm Friday as the day I meet the
Managing Director.* On my way to a having a back up plan for my poker
dreams
I found the Golden Nugget Poker Room a wearying place. All down to the
regs. Especially one - we'll call him Budman. Because he kept going on
about the weed he was chewing out of a little baggie while he played.
I'd have found him entertaining company except that he was a cheater.
All was going well and I was having a great time at the 1/2 nlhe table:
friendly, happy tourists and friendly, able dealers. Then another table
broke and the players took our three empty seats. The 20something
drunk guy in seat 5 was skilled, but drunk spewy, and he had well over
$1500 on the table. It's a no max buy-in, but I think he'd won a lot of
his $ earlier in the night when he'd downed fewer crown regal's. I'm
using the $ symbol because here chips and cash play and while his stack
was 500+his pile of $100 bills was very thick. Budman quickly grabbed
the seat to his right and proceeded to lean back and sideways and any
way he needed to go out of his way to look at seat 5 cards every hand.
I told seat 5 to protect his hand and was told off for it by seat 9, a
older latin lady who had just been brought to the table by Budman. I
then said it to the dealer but he ignored it. When a new dealer sat,
the second hand he dealt he told seat 5 to protect his cards but he was
staring straight into Budman’s eyes as he spoke. That kept it in line
for only a few minutes, but as soon as he spotted Budman started leaning
again, the dealer repeated his warning.
I have to say, this situation tilted me pretty hard. Within an hour
after sitting, Budman had called over 2 other regs. That’s normal,
though not the loud and obvious way they all handled it. The tourists
at the table were all talking about it quietly at the table and more
openly outside the poker room on smoke breaks – and the atmosphere at
the table was dismal. But that negative hunting atmosphere I’d have
dealt with fine – it’s stupid short-term thinking to let a table full of
tourists see your shark teeth. But the cheating is something apart and
it did my head in. I’d like to hear if anyone would have taken any
further/different steps with Budman. I would’ve given up and switched
tables finally but there were no other seats available.
My session was okay in the end. As for the entire Golden Nugget poker
room scene, it’s very small and doesn’t have food service, however they
give away a lot of small bonuses for hitting different high hands and
the tourists were good fun and mostly easy enough profit. But the regs I
encountered definitely made it an ugly place to be.
Session stats:
Duration: 7hrs
Buy-in: $300.00
Cash-out: $435.00
P/L: +$135
Overall:
P/L: +3,475.00
$/hour: +$15.51
Hours: 224
*meeting seemed to go well - I'm told I'll hear tonight or tomorrow whether it's
or
...
)