Tuesday was my last day to play for a bit. Thanksgiving on Thursday and a lot of family coming to stay meant it was time to head back to San Manuel casino. I expected to be stuck playing $2/4 limit hold'em again, but hoped that because of the holiday period there'd be more no limit tables going than I'd found last time.
I arrived about half past three, got my $100 in $1 chips and went to the brush. Of the 40 or so tables going, they actually had a couple of tables of Omaha and 7 card stud and three tables of nlhe! I put my name down for the $1/2 and went to play some limit hold'em while I waited.
After about 45 minutes of wasted pocket kings and such, I took a break to check in with the brush because I couldn't see my initials on the board anymore. There'd been a change of staff and something got messed up somewhere so I had to put my name down again. Fifteen minutes later and I got the call to table 8.
I took my rack of chips (still about $100) to the table and took seat 1, my least favorite. I was thinking about how I'd move to change to any different seat that opened while I pulled $200 out of my wallet to buy more chips, as I'd seen the max buy-in was $300. Doubt crept in when I was given 2 stacks of $5 yellows to go with my rack of $1 blues, and then the dealer asked if she could buy some of my blues. It was then I noticed that all the players had mostly yellows ($5 chips) and a two or three had a lot more than $300. In fact, the polite young man to my left had well over $1000 in yellows. Huh. It took a few beats for me to realize I was at the $2/5 table. The blinds hadn't come around to me yet, so I definitely had time to stand up and find the right stakes for my $300, but I had noticed a couple of other things: first- 7 out of the 9 players at the table were mid-twenty-something males (one seat was empty of a player but had about $500 in chips and a 'missed blind' disc in front of it).
In my admittedly brief experience playing live, both cash and tournaments, I've noticed that something in the dynamic between middle-aged female me and twenty-something male players gives me an edge against at least 80% of them. Whether it's because they immediately box me as a M.I.L.F. (Mother I'd Like to Felt) or H.O.T. (Housewife On Tilt) I'm not sure, but there's something at work where they don't believe me when I have it and do believe me when I'm bluffing. So with a number of prime candidates at this table I decide to give it a go and see how the dynamics played out.
The next notable event was when a young reg-type wandered by and said hello to a couple of the players and asked about the seat with chips but no player. The guys in seats 7 and 9 lit up:
"It's BeRad!"
"Brad? The Brad?"
"The one and only!" followed by big grins. Hmmm.
The dealer change came up soon after and the sitting dealer told the new one: "Seat 5's been missing for ages. It's time he's out." Several of the guys erupted with protests: "No way! Hold his seat!" and the like. The new dealer sat down and said, "If the players want him here, we don't interfere. Not our job." Everybody settled down. I looked forward to seeing what The Brad was like.
I played only a few pots in the next half hour or so, noticed that the B.S.(Boy Shark) in Seat 9 liked to pop a raise pre-flop every hand and tested him a bit to see, yep, he only really got stubborn with me. Meanwhile, The Brad arrives back at the table, whisky grin on his 60ish face saying "Did you miss me, boys?" And proceeds to try to buy Johnny Walker Black for the table "and whatever the lady wants.", wink.
Over the next few hours he proceeded to talk 'drunk', lose big pots, re-load, re-buy drinks, win bigger pots and generally have a good time while being greeted like family by the floor people. From what I saw, only the guy in Seat 2 was really seeing the profits from The Brad situation. He was early to mid-twenties, very quiet, very polite and a very strong, smart player (and so didn't qualify as a B.S.). I eventually left the table with $1230 about four hours after sitting down while Seat 2's stack had grown to near $3000. And we never once got in each other's way.
My visiting family's all hitting the road again at the weekend and I'm looking forward to returning to San Manuel. I am aware, by the way, that the more astute B.S.s will adjust, so I've decided to make sure I take my $300 to the $1/2 table, at least to start.
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