Tao of Poker: Dr. Pauly's WSOP Poker Blog and Sports Betting Discourses

Spaceman and the Blue Parrot

"Yous fellas gonna be playin' Texas Hold'It?" - Ferrari's doorman

Wow, Derek scooped me on the Blue Parrot post! I was up until 6am writing the Vegas book and then I forgot I had to go eat lunch with Briana and her mother, who hates me. She's suspicious that I'm just after her family's money. "I'm not," I told her, "I just like sleeping with your daughter." No wonder the woman loathes me. Rich people hate it when you tell them the truth. Briana's father likes me only because he knows that her mother doesn't like me. I'm just a pawn in their world. The good part is that the old man has taken an interest in my poker career and I even got him to sign up for a Poker Stars account. I'm trying to get him to stake me in the Wall Street game which is a juicy $5K buy-in 10/20 NL game, which he admits he drops two or three buy-ins a week. But that's a post for another time.

Moving on...

Check out Derek's recap of where he specifically mentions his love for public urination. I have a sneaky suspicion that he and Spaceman are gonna piss in Joaquin's stairwell tonight.

If you don't know, Spaceman is in NYC for his Who Wants to be a Millionaire? interview. So what better way to prepare for that big moment than to play some poker at the infamous Blue Parrot? Ferrari got a game together at the last minute in honor of Spaceman's arrival in the big city. This was Spaceman's chance to play some cards against some of the best legal minds in the city along with the collection of other hipsters, bohemians, degenerate gamblers, and yuppies that often fling chips around the Blue Parrot. We had some regulars including a few first timers like Joaquin and Mike. We have not played since I got back from Vegas in August. With everyone's busy schedule and the recent busts in NYC card rooms, the felt at the Blue Parrot had not seen any action.

Here's the lineup:

Seat 1: Spaceman... Shit, you guys know about him! He rules and is one of my favorite bloggers.

Seat 2: Diane (early) then Joaquin (late night)... Diane is a former resident of the East Village. She's a slam poet, musician, singer, writer, blogger and has played plenty of times at the Blue Parrot.

Seat 3: Mike... a financial analyst by day and he's a devoted reader of my blogs. He even showed up at Al Cant Hang's Boathouse Bash! He regularly plays in the clubs around NYC.

Seat 4: Marie... Meet the entrepreneur. She adds a tinge of class and grace to the Blue Parrot. I think it's her British accent but she's often dropped a C-bomb or two at the table, which makes her just one of the gang.

Seat 5: Ferrari... a legal eagle by day and the owner and proprietor of the Blue Parrot by night, our awesome host let's his cats roam around freely and even leaves the windows to his 19th floor apartment wide open. And yes both his cats love to sit on the edge. Don't we all?

Seat 6: F Train... the a former teen idol pop singer in Norway quit the music industry and went to law school instead. Every once in a while a thirtysomething Scandinavian female (and former fan) sends him a pair of her unwashed undies. Sometimes he let's me sniff the dried pussy juice.

Seat 7: Om... Meet the Helmut Newton of the Blue Parrot. He's got the one job we all want (even me). Om is a fashion photographer and gets to be around hot, scantily clad women all the time. Dammit. I have to pay big bucks to get the action he gets everyday. Lucky fucker.

Seat 8: Derek... the self-admitted "Don Swayze" of poker bloggers. You guys also already know my brother Derek who spends most of his free time cranking out material for Card Squad when he's not lurking at the Razz tables on Full Tilt.

Seat 9: Joaquin (early)... Meet the Rooster. Joaquin is known to many as the "Rooster." If you don't know Spaceman actually has a rooster named Joaquin. No bullshit. Anyway, the Rooster is really a pimp and that's how he is able to purchase an unlimited supply of NY Yankees hats and fund his 75/150 Stud sessions in Atlantic City. He keeps encouraging me to hang out with that hot Puerto Rican chick I met at Jury Duty last year. She's the one that bitched to me that she got called for a "fuckin' murder trial." She was hotter than Jessica Alba and she stole my copy of Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek after she admitted she used to have a crush on Wil.

Seat 9: Ugarte (late night)... Meet the Comedian. Ugarte is a former attorney who walked out of his job and started a career as a stand up comic. He's funny. Seriously. The next time you are in NYC, you have to see one of his shows. He's also a stickler for the rules, so if you have poor poker etiquette, you're gonna catch a mouthful from Ugarte. He keep all of us slackers in line.

Seat 10: Pauly... I've actually stopped writing all together about six weeks ago and moved to a secret location on a papaya farm in Negril, Jamaica with Briana. I've hired 6 college students as writing interns and outsourced 3 more from Malaysia and they are the keeping up all my 32 blogs and writing articles for eight different publications. I love sub-contracting. I get to keep 95% of the pay for doing none of the work. I am paying off the broke and easily impressionable college kids with Oxycontin and free iPods. I've been sending autographed pictures of F Train to the Malaysian kids. Who knew he was such a big star in the Pacific Rim?

It was a full house at the Blue Parrot and Coach was noticeably absent. He was on a rare vacation with Mrs. Coach. The shaggy version of Ugarte (who's in his "hippie let's grow my hair out and start growing British Columbia dank on my roof" phase) arrived late and has lifted his personal exile from the Blue Parrot. It seems like ages ago since he and Ferrari decided it was best for the Blue Parrot that he not play there anymore. But I'm a big draw and Ugarte makes exceptions once in a while. He's good like that.

The buy-in at the Blue Parrot is $100 with the games being dealer's choice. The games get a little wild and it's not uncommon to leave with $300 or $400 after a few hours of play. Raises get very little respect at the Blue Parrot and most of the time, the betting is capped preflop. We usually play $2/4 Hold'em and Omaha 8 with $1/5 spread limit for Stud games. Since we had 10 players, we were limited to Hold'em and Omaha 8. After Midnight when the game gets shorthanded, it gets very wild and the other random games like Anaconda gets called or the limits get bumped up.

I started a new rule last night. If you get your Pocket Aces cracked... you get a hug from F Train.

7:00pm... Spaceman, Derek, and I participated in my normal Blue Parrot tradition of me eating at the Cheyenne diner. The pre-game 1 lb. cheeseburger with sauteed onions, mushrooms, and bacon helps soak up the impending booze and bad beats.

7:23pm... It was pouring out in the city, which sucked because neither of us had an umbrella. It always rains when I play at the Blue Parrot. Nothing is worse than having to walk back to the subway in the hard, cold, bitter rain after dropping two buy-ins and not having enough money for cab fare, so you have to take the subway with all the drunks, freakazoids, homeless people, and other forms of crazy people who wander around the city at 4am.

7:57pm... Cards are in the air! Diane got the button and she called Hold'em.

More updates and pics coming...

I flopped Quads with this Omaha hand

The Rooster's view

My chips: red (quarters), black ($1), green ($5), blue ($10), white ($25)

8:03pm... Diane's Big Slick beats my Kournikova. Diane 1, Pauly 0. That would be the beginning of several heads up battles I would have with Diane. I'm not saying she's a calling station, but she's gonna call every bet I make down to the river no matter what each of us have. We actually had good cards that instance.

8:25pm... Battle with Diane, Round 2 was won by me. With the Jackhammer I rivered a four after we both flopped a Jack. She had J-10. Diane 1, Pauly 1.

9:29pm... Om didn't have to wait until Midnight to get Ferrari on tilt. With K-5, Om rivered a full house to crack Ferrari's straight.

9:31pm... Joaquin was to my right so I did a live straddle during his big blind. I had Q-7 and it was capped. F Train didn't look ay his cards and raised it up. I took down a big pot from the Rooster.

9:56pm... Ferrari had a tough night and finally won his first pot.

10:05pm... Pauly 2, Diane 1 with my new favorite hand Q-7, and again who doesn't love four gappers? I turned a straight on Diane. She had 2-3s and the board was 4-5-6-8.

10:07pm... Derek won his first pot.

10:09pm... "I'm a total donkey," I admitted to Spaceman. At that point I was up over $200. I had $300 in chips on the table in two hours of play. Joaquin also had a hefty stack. He scooped a few monster pots in Omaha. Diane and Mike were playing in a lot of pots and were even. Om took an early hit and bled through his stack in the first hour. Ferrari, F Train, and Spaceman couldn't catch any cards. Derek and Marie were either playing super tight or they weren't catching cards either. I on the other hand was playing superb donkey poker. I was up $200 without one high pocket pair. Grubby and I have been developing a strategy that will not only tilt some of the psychological inept players at the table, but also pick up some big pots against any form of donkey, fishy tourists, Southern California players, online maniacs, and calling stations. Sir Waffle witnessed me putting that to use at Foxwoods and Grubby and I had been testing it out at Sunset Station and the Excalibur in Las Vegas.

10:10pm... With Q-7 (this time it was soooted), I took down another pot from the Rooster when the flop was 7-2-2.

10:14pm... I lost a monster pot to Diane. She flopped quad aces. I flopped a boat. Diane 2, Pauly 2.

10:35pm... During Omaha Hi, I flopped a set of Queens with K-Q-Q-9 double suited.

10:40pm... +140 after Seven-card Stud, I had split Kings to start A-K/Kand caught trips by fifth street.

11:05pm... +178. The Rooster might be the best Stud player (aside from Coach) to set foot in the Blue Parrot. But I took a nice pot off of him with Kings up versus his Queens. +178.

11:35pm... After a nice run in stud, I was up +190 after catching some cards in hold'em.

11:39pm... Marie got her aces cracked and she got a hug from F Train. He made ou on that deal more than she did!

11:40pm... The Hand of the Night! The pot was three way between Mike, Ferrari and Derek. The flop was 10-8-5. The betting was capped on the flop with Derek rerasing twice. At that point I put someone on a set and someone with a high pocket pair. The way Derek was betting it looked like he had a set. Mike folded on the river, but Ferrari turned up 8-8 and Derek showed 10-10. It was by far the biggest pot of the night and Derek went from being down a buy in to being up $50.

11:46pm... Ferrari dropped the Hammer! But it didn't win. He lost to Diane's A-Q.

11:47pm... Ugarte arrived. I forget when but sometime around this time. Diane and Marie left early.

11:50pm... Diane had been slowly morphing into the Tiffany Williamson of the Blue Parrot because she kept taking forever to make calls. At one point, Om got frustrated and started eggging her on. He wasn't even in on the hand. Derek and her were heads up and Derek made a raise on the river. After Diane kept pondering a call, Om snapped, "What are you taking so long for? This is not $20/40 at the Bellagio. This is $2/4 at the Blue Parrot. Derek is going to show his hand no matter what," as he pointed to Derek's cards and picked them up (without showing her the actual cards). She called and Om showed the table Derek's pocket aces.

12:20am... I hate Omaha 8. +160.

12:55am... I hate Omaha 8. +115

12:59am... I flopped two pair with 9-7. It was sooted. Anyway Ferrari had 4-4 and Joaquin dealt the turn before Ferrari could act. The 4 of spades was exposed and would get killed. Ferrari mucked. Om and I were still in the hand. We reshuffled the 4 of spades into the deck. F Train joked, "I've seen the card come back out before. It's happened." And instantly, the four of spades was dealt in the river.

1:13am... After five hours of play, Spaceman finally got to call a round of Omaha Hi. That's how long it took for the deal to make its way around the table once. Play was slow last night at the Blue Parrot.

1:15am... +155 after Omaha Hi.

2:10am... +95. I hate Razz.

2:40am... +130 after Stud Hi/Lo. I scooped a big pot with a flush.

2:42pm... Mike rivered a royal flush in Derek during Stud! He got one at Foxwoods last month.

That's it for now. It was another fun night at the Blue Parrot and although Spaceman didn't catch any cards, he still had fun and sample a Blue Parrot game. They are rare these days, which make them even more fun. When it was time to cash out, the bank was short, which has never happened. We think Joaquin and Diane made a mistake when they cashed out/cashed back into the game.

Here's the final tally: