Tao of Poker

West L.A. Fadeaway

"He fucks donkeys? That is fuckin' horrible!" - Mrs. HDouble

Grubby and I got on the road 13 minutes later than I wanted. That's not too bad. We rolled out of Vegas just after 11am and headed towards Los Angeles. Between the outskirts of Vegas and the California stateline there is nothing of note aside from the vast void where mobsters bury stool pigeons and the Nevada sun bakes anything in its way. The stateline casinos appear out of nowhere and jump right out at you.

"We'll have to stop on our way back to Vegas," Grubby said matter-of-factly.

One of my favorite posts from HDouble was a trip he and Mrs. Double took almost two years ago. Inspired by HDouble's scribblings, I agreed with Grubby that we would have to stop at Bufffalo Bill's on Sunday night.

On our way to Baker, the winds kicked up and the rental car swerved a few times. The tumbleweed started coming fast. Inside of a two minute stretch, the road in front of me was bombarded with tumbleweeds blown onto the highway by the fierce winds. I ran over one the size of a small Yugo. Grubby did his best efforts to take pictures, but he wasn't quick enough with the camera. One of my favorite passages from one of Jerry Garcia's biographies was the story about Neal Cassady (the dude who inspired Jack Keroauc's infamous character Dean Moriarity in On the Road). Neal drove the infamous bus for the Merry Pranksters. He was usually hopped up on LSD and when Jerry Garcia asked him how he could drive while tripping he muttered, "You have to pick out the hallucinations from the real stuff and just drive through the hallucinations."

We stopped in Baker to top off the tank (never drive through the desert with a less than 1/2 full tank) and grab food. We passed on Max Greek's and ate Arby's instead. While we parked and ate, we did a few more prop bets. Since my arrival in Las Vegas on Wednesday, I had been getting killed in prop bets. Even the Poker Geek called to tell me that I lost another one... Wil Wheaton would not be attending HDouble's home game. That made me like 1-5.

"See those two girls?" Grubby pointed to a family going inside the Subway-Pizza Hut-Gas Station combination store. One was adorable and the other was... not so adorable.

"Which one comes out first?"

"The ugly one," I said.

"I got the good looking one."

"We should bet on something else in the meantime. What's going to be the sex of the first person out that door?"

Grubby though for a second and said, "Female."

I took male and as Grubby fed French fries to a bunch of crows, a woman exited. My prop bet score sunk to a new low of 1-6. The family never came out so we don't know if the ugly girl came out first or her better looking sister.

*****

Just outside of L.A., it started to drizzle. We made great time because we did not catch one bit of traffic. At one point I looked down and said, "Holy shit! We're going over 100mph."

That's when I set the cruise control for 80 (in a 70mph zone). For most of the way, I drove way above the speed limit. We passed by Hawaiian Gardens en route to chez Grubette's in Long Beach, which is populated by two cats. One of them is a dead ringer for Wil's cat. Brother and sister caught up in the tiki lounge area of the house, while I missed the start of Wil's tournament on Poker Stars by 8 minutes. I sweated Derek and Wil's table while I fired up a Turbo SNG. I let Grubette play a few hands for me and we made the money. I took third and got all my aggression out before we headed to HDouble's. Congrats to Boobie Lover for the victory in Wil's tourney!

I forgot that you can buy liquor in grocery stores in California. I picked up a bottle of SoCo. Grubby and his sister picked up beer. A lot of it. On our way to HDouble's we got caught up in Friday night traffic. We eventually found our way to West LA and Murderer's Row, which HDouble's game had been aptly named. I made last longer bets individually with Grubby and Grubette.

Before we walked in, I set up another prop bet with Grubby. We forgot HDouble's wife's name.

"How many vowels in her name?" I asked Grubby.

"Two."

I knew Swedes tend to have a minimum of three vowels per name, so I went with three.

"How do you spell your name?" I asked upon seeing Mrs. Double.

She had three vowels and I picked up my second win to improve to 2-6. Poker Geek arrived with Geekette. I scribbled in my notes:

7:38pm... I met Geekette for the first time. She is real after all.

JoeSpeaker arrived late after a brutal drive. He hooked me up with an autographed baseball card of Catfish Hunter. He played for both of our favorite teams... for JoeSpeaker's A's and my Yankees. Bill showed up and I thanked him for all his hard work for the WPBT event next week.

HDouble introduced me to his crew at Full Tilt as we waited for the rest of the players to arrive. I finally met Ephro! He's buddies with Daddy and also works with FT. I was warned that everyone was going to get plastered. It was a long and rough week for the guys over at Full Tilt and they were happy the week was over. We'd ended up having 19 people for a $50 freeze out NL tournament. $950 prize pool and the top 5 paid.

Here's who was at my table (the kiddie kitchen table):

Seat 1: Shawn
Seat 2: Pauly
Seat 3: Lance (then HDouble)
Seat 4: Change100
Seat 5: Poker Geek
Seat 6: Franklin
Seat 7: Mike
Seat 8: Grubby
Seat 9: Grubette

If you don't know Lance is the loose gun at Murderer's Row. He can and will play any two cards. Lucky for me he was on my left. I played tight to start out. Lance and the Poker Geek got into it. Lance raised, Geek went over the top all in. Lance sighed and said something like, "Geek's protecting his aces. I'll donate anyway."

Lance's 6-6 did not hold up against Geek's A-A and Lance was the first player out.

Grubby was crippled by his sister. In an 8 way pot with a slew of limpers, Grubby moved all-in with A-10o. His sister quickly called from UTG with 7-7. Everyone folded and her sevens held up. Grubby was out a few hands later. I won my second consecutive prop bet after I picked up the last longer. I improved to 3-6. I'd pickup one more when Grubby could not properly guess how many career TDs HDouble had. He said more than 7. The correct answer was 5.

"Four in one game," the former semi-pro reminded us.

By then everyone was fairly toasted. BG and Daddy called for a dial-a-shot and we did a few more.

I lost more than half of my stack on a move. I raised preflop with the suited Jackhammer (all spades). Change100 called. The flop was all diamonds: Q-J-6. I bet out around 500 or half my stack. Change moved all in. I showed HDouble my cards before I mucked and he said, "I liked that move." Yeah I raised preflop with junk and bet out with second pair only to get outflopped by Change100's Ad-7d and the nut flush draw. I'm glad I folded. She and the Geek had most of the chips at the table.

After one of the breaks, I stepped outside for a smoke with Change100. When I came back, HDouble kept joking that "Pauly is recharged!" That's when I began to run over the table. I had a combination of some monsters and marginal hands. I kept raising pots hoping someone would call one of my monsters. It never happened and I tried to get the Geek on tilt by showing him my junk hands whenever I raised his blinds and he folded. I picked up a lot of pots and everytime I scooped HDouble would yell, "Pauly's recharged!"

I dropped the Hammer on one hand and we looked up at the clock. It was 1:18 minutes into the tournament and no one had yet to drop the Hammer.

"That's weak," added HDouble commenting on the lack of Hammer throws. "It took over an hour for the first Hammer."

A few hands later, I found A-A. I moved all-in over the top of Change100. She eventually called with 5-5. I didn't know Grubbette was still in the hand and turned over my aces. She had the Hiltons and folded! By then a small crowd of railbirds crowded HDouble's kitchen. They all stood behind Mike who was dealing the hand. He turned up the three cards and by the expressions of Lance, Grubby, and Joe Speaker standing behind him, I knew I got outflopped before the cards hit the table. Change100's set of 5s cracked my aces. I was out in 11th place and bubbled out of the final table. I lost a last longer with Grubette.

Since Kori and Change100 had about the same number of chips heads-up, they decided to chop.

Here's a list of the money winners:

1-2 Change100 & Geekette ($304 each)
3 Joe Speaker ($152)
4 John ($114)
5 Grubette ($76)

Here's a picture dump:


Black crows in Baker


Catfish


The prize pool


Joe Speaker and Bill


Grubbette's hole cam


Change 100's huge chip stack!
I did another shot and got ready for the cash game! In the meantime, I was trying to explain to Mrs. HDouble that Daddy was a donkey fucker.

"He fucks donkeys? That is fuckin' horrible!" she said in her Swedish accent. "Did he really fuck a donkey?"

We told her about his world-famous post and how she'd get to meet Daddy next weekend.

"That is horrible," she kept saying before she paused. "Does he give the donkey a treat afterwards?"

The room erupted in laughter.

A few minutes later, she realized that a donkey was not the same as a monkey. She thought Daddy fucked a "monkey." Something got lost in the translation there.

"A monkey is small so I can see him picking it up and bouncing it around. A donkey is like a horse. Jesus Christ! That is so fuckin' sick!" she said.

Daddy is now going to become a part of Swedish folklore. Daddy the Monkey Fucker.

... to be continued.