Lion Tales

This blog has moved

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:28:00 +0000

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noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:00:00 +0000

I'll be tweeting as quietlion. My first event will likely be the $10k mixed tournament on June 4.

Come back to Wing Lei Johnny Chan, Johnny Chan

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:20:00 +0000

They say you can tell a Chinese restaurant is good if there are Chinese people eating there. Me, I thought the Michelin star hanging on the wall at Wing Lei was a better clue.

I was entered in the million-dollar Baccarat tournament at the Wynn and I had made it to day two along with a few dozen others, one of whom was right ahead of us getting seated. I caught the eyes of Diane, my girlfriend, and Noreene, her BFF. I don’t like to talk about race but they were the kind of girls you didn’t have to ask if they liked Chinese food before you made the reservation. Bruce, our friend from tha OC who flies his own plane, was with us as well.

“You see that guy?” I whispered. They looked at his back. “That’s Johnny Chan,” I said. “Johnny Fucking Chan.”

“Doctor!” said Bruce. The girls stared blankly.

“He’s a famous poker player,” I said.

“Have you played with him?” asked Bruce.

“Yup,” I said. He knocked me out of a big tournament when his Kings beat my Jacks. Johnny Fucking Chan.”

“Doctor!” said Bruce.

“Why do they call him that?” asked Diane.

“Oh, they don’t really. It’s from a movie,” I said. “Rounders. He was in it. He won the World Series two years in a row.” Back to back baby, and the second win, against Erik “Stretch” Seidel, who will forever regret his decision to wear that funny orange visor, was immortalized in the movie. No one will ever do that again. Not even Jamie Gold.

Me, I never had much luck in poker tournaments. Baccarat was more my game. I had made the final table at the Wynn baccarat tournament back to back the last two times but had come up short: the first time I was the first one out, making a move that failed. The second time I had a chance to win it all when I bet Banker and Tie on the last hand, but when Player drew a third card to make nine, my third card came up one short and I lost by a pip.

The hostess took us to the VIP table in the corner and I told the girls to order anything they wanted because I was RFB. Diane giggled and ordered a lychee martini. I ordered pink Champagne on ice and the geoduck two ways followed by the three-cup cod, probably the best Chinese dish I’ve ever had. “The geoduck is $138! Doctor!” said Bruce.

“It’s good to be RFB,” I said. Diane giggled.

Noreene had her camera out and was looking around the room. “You want a picture with Johnny?” I asked. She grinned and nodded. “Check out the private room,” I said. She and Diane hopped up and found Johnny in the private dining room. He posed for a photo and the girls had their celebrity fix for the evening. “He wanted us to pose in front of the dragon,” Noreene said, showing me the photo.

Diane said, “Johnny Fucking Chan.”

The next morning I once again made it to the semifinals and, with some luck, to the final table for the third time in a row. Diane had been sweating me. It was five o’clock but I held off on the martinis as I wanted my head clear for the final table. Diane wanted something sweet so I suggested cookies or candy from the minibar. “Those things scare me,” she said. “What if you get clumsy and knock all the stuff off? Do they charge you for everything?”

“Well, I suppose they might, but you could get it reversed. Besides, I’m RFB.” She giggled. Then she wrinkled her brow.

“What does RFB stand for again?” she asked.

“Complimentary Room, Food, and Beverage.”

“Oh!” she said. “I thought it stood for Richard Fucking Brodie!”

I took my seat at the final table and maneuvered my way into the lead going into the final hand. When the bets were revealed, I saw that once again, I needed Banker or Tie to win it all. The player’s cards were faced: a natural nine. I squeezed and bent the banker’s cards for all they were worth.

Eight. I lost again.

I ordered that martini. After all, I was RFB.

Hoss Gets Hitched

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:16:00 +0000

Last time I flew to the City was Sept. 21, 2001 – ten days after 911. But since I was flying east anyway for the wedding of Matt “HOSS_TBF” Hawrilenko in Princeton, NJ, I took the opportunity to sandwich two slices of New York rye around the meat of my trip.

I like to spend as much time with Hoss as I can in hopes he’ll accidentally let slip some information I can use to improve my preemptive bluffing frequency in multi-street games. OK, so he’s also one of my favorite people in poker. But then everyone loves a winner. Even if he got beat by a bot.

(Hoss barely lost the second of two 500-hand matches to the Polaris program but beat the bot handily in the first such match. I point this out because Matt enlisted his entire extended family, including his new inlaws, to badger me until I unsullied his reputation. So there you go. You try to do someone a favor by advertising he’s a fish, and this is the thanks you get.)

I used up the last of my Delta miles to fly business class to JFK. The airlines have fallen on hard times. Delta closed its Crown Room in Seattle, as I discovered when I took the elevator up to where it formerly was. Fortunately, terminal A had a stained-glass lion for me to look at while I waited for the on-time boarding.

Meal service in the forward cabin of the 757 was one tray of food followed by ice cream for the six-hour flight. My personal entertainment system didn’t work, but if it had, there would have been a nice selection of movies and TV shows to watch. The one high point of the business-class service was a nice selection of not only premium liquors, but also four specialty cocktails. I had a pomegranate martini toward the end of the flight. We landed early.

I had booked the W Union Square for the first night, the same hotel I stayed in right after the attack. They upgraded me to a Spectacular corner room (that’s actually what they call it at W hotels – I believe the worst room is Wonderful) because of my Starwood Gold status. The front desk had a bowl of complimentary green apples and in the morning water infused with herbs and fruit. Parking was a whopping $60/night.

I dropped the bags and hustled over to A Voce, where I had an 11pm reservation. This casual Italian restaurant came highly recommended for fabulous food and service and did not disappoint. The wine list featured Italian selections and I got a beautiful $75 bottle of Sicilian Nero D’Avola to go with the octopus appetizer and pork chop entrée.

In the morning I headed out to Princeton and checked into the Nassau Inn, a charming hotel in the heart of town. Matt and Emily, his fiancée, hosted a barbecue in a beautiful old house by a pond. Amazingly, no poker was played, although I did manage to have my team squeak out a win over a couple of bocce-ball pros. I was trying to hustle them into a croquet match because they probably didn’t know about my 2003 bracelet at the World Series of barbecue, when I beat Ted Forrest heads up for the championship. Never having played bocce ball before, I had to rely on my natural athletic ability, which fortunately came through.

Hoss got hitched the next afternoon in a beautiful atheist ceremony. It’s exciting to me to live in a time where people don’t have to pretend to believe in fairy tales in order to keep from being killed by mobs. Well, it hasn’t quite spread to American politicians but I’d lay odds Obama doesn’t believe in the man with the beard even if it would be political suicide to admit it. The community of winning poker players is full of atheists. It's tough to be a winning poker player if you like to believe in magic instead of reality.

Matt and Emily served a nice Cabernet Franc at the reception but with blueberry martinis available it was hard to decide on a libation. Given the geeky circle of friends, at least on the groom’s side, the happy couple provided foosball, air hockey, and a crane machine all set on free play. It’s rare for a wedding reception to be more than a heartwarming celebration of love and friendship, but this one was actually fun. Party animal Bill Chen, winner of two WSOP bracelets and co-author of The Mathematics of Poker, let loose on the dance floor as usual, showing why he's always the favorite of the ladies.

The next morning, after a Matt & Emily slide show and a quick discussion of quantitative analysis in hedge funds with the Susquehanna crowd, I returned to Manhattan for one more night, this time in the Westin Times Square. I love large, impersonal hotels and Westins fill the bill (although now that they are entirely non-smoking they aren’t an option if I’m in the mood to have a cigar in the room). Once again I got upgraded to a corner room and parking was only $48.
I had tickets to the matinee of Xanadu, a 90-minute romp based on the really great score from the really bad Olivia Newton-John movie. I had great seats but I didn’t realize you could actually sit on the stage, which would have been fun. Broadway shows have gravitated toward the 90-minute Vegas standard, presumably in deference to shortened attention spans in today’s audience, including myself.

Every time I go to New York I like to have a drink at the rotating bar at the Marriott Marquis, which my best friend Steve introduced me to years ago. The rotating bar used to be on the eighth floor. While there is still a bar there, it no longer rotates. Fortunately, the View lounge on the top floor does! I had a couple Woodford Manhattans and toasted Steve as the city turned about me for an hour.

For dinner I had booked Aquavit Café, a traditional Swedish restaurant featuring lots of smoked fish and infused spirits (aquavits). My favorite infusion was the horseradish! Dinner was delicious and the young waiter was charming and gave excellent recommendations without being either fawning or brusque.

I was booked on the 8pm flight back to Seattle but I got to the airport at one to stand by for the 4:40 flight. Delta wouldn’t let me check in until six hours before flight time, but I had a brilliant idea: I whipped out my laptop and Verizon card and checked in online, which you can do 24 hours before the flight! Then I went to the kiosk and tried to reprint the boarding pass. No dice! I couldn’t even reprint until six hours before flight time. Foiled again. I played Scrabble online until two, then got the boarding pass, stood by for the 4:40, and went to the Crown Room.

Delta’s standby and upgrade system is completely automated. A monitor at the gate displays the waiting list in order and notifies you when you clear. The flight was delayed 90 minutes and I sat at the top of the standby list until just before departure when I heard my name being called. Success! I got a seat with a working entertainment unit and was on my way back home.

The meal was once again a one-tray affair but I salved my disappointment with several Herradura margaritas. After the meal, the flight attendants ignored the 26 business-class passengers for about three hours but grudgingly served drinks if I came up to the galley and begged. They did come around with water just before landing. I guess they stopped calling it first class for a reason: it was definitely not a first-class experience.

The early flight, although late, gave me an extra few hours of sleep before leaving in the morning for Vegas and BARGE. I watched the late Seattle summer sunset, imagining Hoss and Emily riding off into it.

A Heads-up for Human Poker Players

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:09:00 +0000

I had images of scientists rushing Einstein's dying brain to freezer storage, saving his wisdom for future generations who, they hoped, would have the technology to restore its function and make his incomparable intellect immortal.

I had invited many of the world's top heads-up limit hold 'em players to Red Square in Las Vegas for a drink in their famous ice room. Heads-up games are played almost exclusively online, since brick-and-mortar poker rooms rarely are willing to spare a dealer for just two players. So although I knew many of these guys' screen names and even human names, I'd never met most of them in person until now. (l to r: Heather, QsDaddy, TheComplainer, SallyWoo, RobLP, Quiet Lion, KPR16, pmv55)

Red Square issued us all fur coats and let us do as many shots of Chopin as we wanted inside the freezer room with Lenin's head encased in a block of ice. We shivered enough to soak up the atmoshpere and then retired to the main lounge area.

Head's up limit hold 'em is my favorite game, mostly because you get to play almost every hand and you see a showdown almost half the time. This satisfies both my thirst for action and my curiosity.

It also is the favorite game of researchers at the University of Alberta, where they continue to improve Polaris, their poker-playing program. In fact, they've improved it to the point where it can hold its own against the very best players in the world. Last week it beat Matt "Hoss_TBF" Hawrilenko, considered by some to be the best in the world, over 500 hands. Now Hoss will be the first to tell you that 500 hands doesn't prove anything. But he said he was impressed by the bot's skill.

According to unconfirmed reports in various poker forums, Full Tilt Poker recently caught several accounts using bots, or artificial-intelligence programs, to play heads-up limit hold 'em on their site. Because it was a violation of the terms of service, they seized all their funds and distributed them to the victims. I have no official confirmation from Full Tilt, as they don't discuss the details of such cases for a variety of reasons. But I can't imagine the perpetrators won't modify their programs and try again on other sites. This is a real heads-up for human poker players.

I entered a couple more World Series events but didn't cash. I decided to skip the main event in favor of enjoying summer in Las Vegas. I like hanging out by the pool and cruising the Strip in a limo more than spending 14 hours a day playing poker tournaments.

Can you blame me?

Not the Champ

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:59:00 +0000

People keep asking why I came to Vegas. The World Series combines so many things I hate: slow, boring games; bad food; long hours; and losing six out of seven times even if you're a great player. But everyone knows why I came to Vegas. For the waters.

Although I had some luck in the casino, I failed to cash in the $10,000 limit hold 'em championship at the 2008 World Series of Poker. I did make it to day two despite being sandwiched in between Brandon Adams on my right and eventual winner Rob Hollink on my left, then being moved to the right of Andy "The Rock" Bloch.

On day two I faced the rogue's gallery of Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, and Joe Cassidy before Barry Greenstein showed up to round out the table. Nevertheless, I survived until the table broke but then got it all in with Ace-Queen against Ace-King and went busto about 3/4 of the way though this tough field.

I did manage to double my starting stack, but other than that the high point of the event was figuring out I could use the $10 food comp that Harrah's provides each $10,000 entrant to exactly cover a chicken parmesan sub and two bags of smoked almonds.

Desperate for good food, I cruised over to Bellagio for the tasting menu at Michael Mina, washed down with a 2006 Ken Wright Oregon Pinot Noir. I'm not loving the 2006 vintage compared with 2005, but I've never had anything from Ken Wright that wasn't good.

Michael Mina (formerly Aqua) is inside the conservatory, where I imagine Professor Plum killing someone with the candlestick every time I walk through the beautiful, fragrant, ever-changing floral display. This time they had a very clever mini-Bellagio complete with fountain show. Stop by and see it if you get the chance. It's one of the best free things to do in Vegas.

I'm planning to enter the $1500 mixed hold 'em event on Sunday.

Sick Event

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:23:00 +0000

The only way to beat Vegas is to hit and run. That’s why I never moved here. If you spend too much time in Sin City it grinds you down, wears you out, and eventually absorbs you, stealing your soul and making you part of the jaundiced, hungry money machine. But if you hit and run you can get in, make a quick score, and get out before it bites you back. Sometimes you get bit anyway.

This was a nine-day trip to the desert playground, which was pushing it. I took five nights at the Palms, the closest decent hotel to the World Series, and then planned to move to Wynn, my favorite place in town, where they were giving away six Mini Coopers in a drawing Saturday night.

But while still at the Palms, I tried the new restaurant at Palms Place, Simon, along with Kyle, Crazy Mike, and Robyn. There are so many gourmet restaurants in Vegas it’s hard to gush about food but it was top notch. What really stood out, though, was the room. Intimate and glass walled, it sat surrounded by the private Palms Place pool. The waiter talked Crazy Mike into ordering his filet medium instead of medium well, and we relaxed as we watched the pool water lap onto the deck in the June desert wind.

I had no luck at the Palms, nor at Wynn when I moved over there. The good news was Nichole decided to fly down for the weekend, but the bad news was I picked up a nasty case of food poisoning that seemed to linger on for days. I dragged myself to the Rio to play the $1500 limit Hold ‘Em event but never got anywhere. The drawing for the cars was Saturday night and I could barely get out of bed but I showered and dressed and went down to the VIP cocktail reception with Nichole to see if I won.

When we got there we discovered they had secretly transformed the drawing into a game show. If your ticket got drawn you had to play “concentration” and match two numbers on a big board to win one of the six cars. If you missed twice they would draw someone else. I didn’t get picked in the first six, or the next four, or the next two. Finally there was one car left and they drew my name. Nichole said, “16 and 12! 16 and 12!” The room was spinning as I walked up to the stage. I decided to go for the drama. “Well, I’m pretty sure one of them is 16.” I said. Then I waited. I wondered if they’d call the clock on me. Finally I said, “How about….12!”

The room erupted into mixed cheers and boos as they revealed the final car. I took the cash option and used it to pay off a marker.

Still not 100% I flew back to Seattle to recover for a few days. Next event is the $10k limit Hold ‘Em championship on Sunday June 15.

Tough event

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:07:00 +0000

After chipping up my starting 10k to 17,000, I busted out of the $5000 mixed Hold 'Em event shorly after the dinner break. Sandwiched between Ted Forrest and Shannon Shorr on the right and Gavin Smith on the left, I fell prey to the most active player at the table and made a loose call with Ace-Eight of Clubs when he limp-reraised me all in with pocket Queens. I thought I had a big edge in the limit portion of the event but It's been a long time since I was at the top of my NLHE game, playing several tournaments a day online.

Nevertheless, this is the biggest social gathering of the year for poker players, and although my buddy Matt "HOSS_TBF" Hawrilenko busted out early, he waited around to hang with me at the dinner break. Matt may be the best heads-up limit Hold 'Em player in the world, which poses a dilemma for him as many of his friends also play that game for high stakes and he doesn't want to teach us how to beat him but neither does he want to be rude and dismissive. This leads to conversations such as:

QL: "How do you play opponents who frequently check-raise dry flops with air?"
HOSS: "Very carefully!"
QL: "And you counter that by...?"
HOSS: "Incredibly clever tactics!"

QL: "I've decided I have no idea how to play monotone flops."
HOSS: "If we had four-color decks that would solve the problem completely!"

But it's impossible to get mad at him because he's the world's nicest guy, plus he's a head taller than me, 20 years younger, and an expert in martial arts.

Ted and Shannon were discussing whether they'd rater have a .38 revolver versus a grizzly bear or a knife against a tiger. I suggested I'd rather have the bottle of suntan lotion against the Hawaiian Tropic model because even if I didn't survive -- what a way to go. Ted scowled and said that wasn't one of the choices. I said, "Sir, if you ever want to be a winning poker player you must learn to think outside of the box."

I may play the shorthanded NLHE event on Thursday, but if not I will likely play the $1500 limit Hold 'Em event on Friday.

2008 World Series begins

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:35:00 +0000

Although I've been playing far fewer poker tournaments than in the past, having decided they interfere too much with dinner, I'm now in Vegas to play a few events in the 2008 World Series at the Rio. Tonight I will attempt to overcome Harrah's 6% commission and cash in the $5000 mixed Hold 'Em event. Levels will be one hour each, playing limit Hold 'Em the first half hour and no limit the second. Cards are in the air at 5 p.m.

Last night I had dinner with Kyle and his family at Nove Italian restaurant at the Pams. They sat us at one of the large tables overlooking the Strip with gentle flames flickering at the base of the windows. The whole branzino (European seabass) was fabulous. We started with the 2004 Joel Gott "4 Sarah's Metier" cabernet. Gott makes one of the top inexpensive cabs so I was curious to taste a higher-end bottling and wasn't disappointed: it was fruity, well balanced, and finished well. Then we moved on to the 2005 Testarossa Sanford & Benedict pinot noir. I haven't had a California '05 I haven't liked and this one was great: full enough to follow the light cab but as fruity as Hawaiian Punch but without the sweetness. I'll miss them when they're gone.

In gambling, like sports, you're either on a hot streak or you're due.

I'm due.

Is the end of prohibition finally around the corner?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:48:00 +0000

My friends are often surprised when I tell them my #1 political issue is repealing (drug) prohibition. Since they know I don't do anything stronger than Tanqueray 10, they are often puzzled. This piece in the LA Times outlines the arguments well.

Apparently I'm a Democrat.

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:06:00 +0000

80% Mike Gravel
78% Dennis Kucinich
73% Barack Obama
71% Chris Dodd
69% Bill Richardson
68% Hillary Clinton
68% John Edwards
66% Joe Biden
40% Ron Paul
40% Rudy Giuliani
34% John McCain
34% Mitt Romney
28% Mike Huckabee
23% Fred Thompson
22% Tom Tancredo

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

2007 WSOP Wrapup

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:13:00 +0000

Once the Harrah's bigwigs finally figured out I wasn't some kind of criminal mastermind I was free to play at the 2007 World Series of Poker and even get a room at the Rio, although not quite up to the standards of the Palazzo Suites they put me in last year.

I planned to get the Rio room if I made it deep in the main event, but other than that I was staying at the Wynn, where I have a special deal: I don't win and they don't kick me out.

The big improvement this year wasn't Harrah's doing: Nevada made smoking indoors illegal, except for casinos, bars, strip clubs, and brothels. As a result, the noxious clouds were even farther from the action than last year. People were supposed to go outside to smoke, and largely did. They even had big fans to blow the smoke away.

I never did get a straight answer as to why Harrah's 86'ed me. As soon as I got to talk with Tom Jenkin, who is in charge of all the Vegas properties, he immediately realized it was a mistake and reinstated me within hours. My suspicion is that some managers within Caesars Palace simply did not want to risk my hitting even more big jackpots and making their numbers look even worse. But really, to send me a certified letter warning me off the premises when I'd been coming to Caesars Palace for 25 years without a problem -- it just boggles the mind. But Tom assured me nobody thought I did anything wrong and if I hit four more royal flushes tomorrow, I'd be perfectly OK with him.

So that being settled, I went on to enter 10 of the preliminary events. I played with some cool people, including Ross "Rocky" Boatman, Liz Lieu, and Andrew Prock (right), author of the excellent PokerStove software. We had met last year at BARGE, but previously had exchanged posts on rec.gambling.poker in which he had referred to me as a "rich dilettante." I corrected him, as I prefer to be called a rich, arrogant dilettante, and he graciously assented. Andrew is a pleasure to play with, witty and trenchant. I hope to be on his left next time.

The tournaments were grueling. I like to play poker for a few hours, not all day and all night, but the schedule demanded play until two or three in the morning every day, provided I was still in, which I often was. I don't know how guys like Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, shown here after winning a high-stakes pool match, have done it year after year. Frankly it reminds me of my time at Harvard: I loved being around the people if only I didn't have to put up with all those damned classes. Other than an amusing table assignment one day (left), most of the events felt more like drudgery than fun. Of course I'm sure if I ever made a final table that would be a lot more exciting than busting out after 10 or 15 hours of play with nothing to show for it but a $10 food comp.

I staked my 21-year-old buddy Kyle Ray to his first WSOP event, the $1500 mixed hold 'em, and he brought home a nice cash. He's a very serious student of the game and I expect great things of him.

What I was looking forward to the most was hanging out with the math team: Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman, who co-authored the bible of game theory as applied to poker, The Mathematics of Poker, Terrence Chan, and Matt Hawrilenko. These guys are all phenomenal poker players and a lot of fun to hang out with.

I had dinner with Matt, Terrence, and Terrence's new girlfriend Laren at the Country Club at Wynn. Country Club may be my favorite restaurant in town now. They do the steaks charcoal-broiled with a salt rub, but given that I'm eating healthy these days I appreciate the one or two fish dishes they always offer. The service is personal and attentive and the wine list, like the menu, is small but very high quality. We had the last bottle of the Penner-Ash Syrah. Matt approved.

A few days later I made it over to the math team clubhouse, where I hoped to learn something about poker but instead played pool and watched Matt and Terrence engage in the manly sport of wrestling. I met Mike Fong, who was sharing the house with the math team although he hadn't yet established credentials as lofty as the others. We bought a chip set from the Rio and practiced HORSE, showing our cards at the end of each hand for commentary. I got a nice shot of Laren's feet.

The main event was almost a non-event for me. I came within a few chips of doubling up and then ran out of luck, busting on the first day when 3/4 of the field hadn't even started playing yet. That gave me the weekend to relax and unwind at the Wynn before I flew home.

The more I stay at the Wynn the more I think it's by far the best hotel in town, not just for the facilities but for the excellent service top to bottom. Nichole (above right) enjoyed her first Kobe burger on the patio at Tableau while I entered an invitational Baccarat tournament for casino high rollers.

I bombed out but Russell Rosenblum (left), one of the smartest and nicest guys in poker with one of the sweetest and prettiest wives, took his beginner's luck into third place for a nice chunk of change.

But the big surprise was the winner: Full Tilt pro Roland de Wolfe (right), whom I didn't even know played Baccarat. Roland is a frenetic, upbeat guy you just want to root for. He later tried to invite us to his birthday party but the elevator doors closed before he could tell us the details, almost snipping off his nose.

Tournament poker can be a road to heartbreak. Bill Chen told me a great player can expect to cash in one out of seven tournaments. If a bad streak comes, that can easily mean 20 events in a row without cashing. The math team didn't do so well this year. Last year Bill won two bracelets. Why do we do it?

I guess it's fun.

Two more pics of Nichole...she cleans up nice.

A disappointing cash

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:29:00 +0000

I just finished my seventh event of the 2007 WSOP, the $3000 limit Hold 'Em. I made the money but then ran out of luck and cashed in 21st place for $7761. At my last table I played a pot against Phil Hellmuth, who still didn't know my name after four years. I reraised his early-position raise in the small blind with QQ and he raised my flop bet on a board of King-rag-rag and I just called, intending to call him down. He checked behind on the turn and I checked the river hoping he would bet. He didn't and showed Ace-Queen, well played to lose the minimum and get the free card.

Made day 2 of the limit Hold 'Em championship

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:33:00 +0000

I played my first event since Harrah's lifted the ban, the $5000 Limit Hold 'Em championship. Despite having Andrew Prock on my left and Ted "I have a straight" Lawson two to my right, I built my starting stack of 10,000 up to 24,000 before going cold toward the end of the day. I advance to day 2 with slightly more than my starting chips, 10,600. Barry Greenstein and Mimi Tran are at my table.

It would make a hell of a story if I won this one!

I can play!

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 18:56:00 +0000

Thanks to the quiet diplomacy of WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and to many of my fellow poker players vouching for my character, Harrah’s has decided to allow me to play in the remainder of the WSOP and lifted the ban on my entering their properties. I’m still learning the details of why this was handled this way but it’s looking more and more like a big mistake. As usual everyone at Harrah’s was friendly and professional. I will post more details as they become available but I can now eat at the buffet without fear of arrest.

I want to thank everyone who supported me from the bottom of my heart. It is very gratifying to know how much my friends care.

I guess I won’t be needing the “Free Quiet Lion!” hats and t-shirts after all.

Fall of the Roman Empire

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:02:00 +0000

In an overreaction of thermonuclear proportions to my recent good luck, Harrah’s has barred me from playing in the World Series of Poker, and in fact from even setting foot in any of their hotels.

When Harrah’s Entertainment bought Caesars Palace, many industry pundits predicted they would have trouble managing the high-roller business. Harrah’s was built on the high-margin, low-volume player. They produce a predictable win, cost little in comps, and there are many, many of them. High rollers demand games with a slim house advantage, generous comps, and the possibility of actually walking away with a win once in a while.

Harrah’s doesn’t like that.

For 40 years, Caesars Palace had a reputation for welcoming big action. At one point they were the biggest place in town. They loved big players and didn’t sweat if somebody won. They wanted to keep him coming back. Eventually the house edge would kick in, but for now they’d let the player enjoy his good fortune.

That reputation is gone.

On May 10, Harrah’s sent certified letters to several high rollers informing them that their business was no longer wanted at Caesars Palace or any of the other Harrah’s properties in Nevada, California, and Arizona. I was one of them. I called the office of Tom Jenkins, regional vice president, and got a call back from Terry Byrnes, the VP of customer service. He told me I was being 86ed because they couldn't figure out how to make a profit off me.

Now understand, the only games I play are poker and video poker. In poker, the house makes a 100% guaranteed profit straight off the top. In video poker, the house controls every aspect of the game: the paytables, the amount of the house edge, and the promotions and incentives they offer. There is no way to use skill – or even cheat – to beat video poker. You can’t count cards. You can’t peek at the dealer’s hole card. It’s a machine. The best you could possibly hope for is to play computer-perfect, which I don’t, and even if that were possible the machine still has a maximum theoretical payout chosen by the casino. The only thing the casino can’t control is luck. One reason I like video poker is because you can get lucky and win. You hit a royal flush every 40,000 hands or so. If you’re lucky enough to hit two, you’re ahead! If you hit three, you’re ahead for a long time!

Boy, have I been lucky at Harrah’s.

I hit four huge royal flushes in the last year at three of the Las Vegas Harrah’s properties. Not surprisingly, I’m ahead, although I’ve put 80% of it back. This seems to rub them the wrong way. But I have trouble imagining the thought process that would cause someone to decide that kicking out one of your most loyal customers is an appropriate solution to the problem of him having extremely good luck. If they think the machines are too loose, make them tighter. If they think they are giving me too much in comps, give less. They control every aspect of the game. Except luck. And kicking out players who have been lucky makes about as much sense as banning people from playing the lottery because they win it.

Reactions to lucky streaks in video poker are not unique to Harrah's, but the usual response is to cut down on the promotional offers to players who aren't losing as much as they hoped. Even that is potentially unsound business: lucky players get unlucky and you want them to be at your place when that happens.

If it weren’t for the WSOP, I’d laugh about this rather than cry. I don’t think they’re trying to punish me, I just think they don’t understand their business and are compounding one costly mistake – offering way too much in comps and incentives to video-poker players – with another. My friends, if you can’t figure out how to make money from people who only play games with a built-in house edge, you may as well give up on the casino business and close your doors.

In the meantime, know that the winner of the main event this year cannot be considered a true world champion.

Not when the Quiet Lion isn’t allowed to play.

Lucky Me

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:00:00 +0000

It sounded like the start of a letter to Penthouse Forum. My girlfriend Jenni’s 18-year-old twin sisters were coming to Vegas for the weekend. Eighteen isn’t old enough to drink or gamble, so I had to find something for them to do. Adam Ant was running through my head but instead I got them Ricky Martin tickets. For Jenni and her roommate I got VIP seats to the opening of the new Palms theater with Gwen Stefani. Me, I’d rather smoke a Cohiba out on the North Show Terrace at the Wynn or get in between the 400-thread-count Egyptian sheets with Jenni and watch Rounders for the 37^th time. Or just watch Jenni. But the girls weren’t in town yet so I went over to Caesars Palace to play a little video poker.

I had been asking the bosses at Caesars to put in one or two of my favorite machines: $100 video poker where you only needed to bet $300 to get the maximum payout on the Royal Flush rather than the usual $500. I strolled into the high-limit room and saw them right in the front, where a trio of Red, White, and Blue slot machines used to be. I drew a marker and had them set the machine for credit play, so it wouldn’t stop every time I hit a payout of $1200 or more. Instead a watcher would watch me and write down all the information to report to the IRS.

The marker lasted about as long as a lap dance from a 20-year-old stripper, and a second marker vanished just as quick. I texted Jenni to meet the limo driver when she arrived at McCarran, then stuck the Nokia back in the cell-phone pocket of my Lucky Brands. Jeans have had that pocket as long as I can recall, back even before cell phones were invented let alone small enough to fit there. What the hell was it originally for? I took out another marker.

It was one of those gambling sessions you always remember, and not in a good way. I got stuck fast. Then I dug the hole deeper and deeper. I wanted to get unstuck before Jenni arrived. But by the time her plane landed all I had to show for my gambling was a stack of markers big enough to plug up the toilet if you tried to flush them. I licked my wounds and took Jenni over to the Wynn where we ate at the only gourmet restaurant that was still open, Corsa. She had an eggplant parmesan that would make Julia Child swear off red meat. During dinner and after, we remembered all the things we enjoyed about each other.

I came back in the morning and played the same machine some more. I couldn’t hit anything so I went over to the Palms to play in the Ultimate Blackjack Tour tournament. I advanced all the way to the semifinals, where I got seated at top pro Anthony Curtis’s left. I decided my strategy would be to get one chip ahead of him and then copy him. Of course, we both busted.

I went back and played some more and kept losing. I thought I had to bottom out eventually but I finally gave up stuck a whopping $150k. I took Jenni to Okada for some Divine Droplets. Good sake drowns all sorrows.

The next day my parachute finally opened. I played and played on the same money and then held the queen and ten of clubs and in popped a royal flush for $240,000. Unstuck! I had been hammering on these $100 machines all over town for a couple years now and this was my first royal flush. I snapped a pic with my Nokia and sent it to Jenni. Then I hit the ducks, twice, for $60k a pop. It was the kind of day that makes you feel like you can walk on water in your black Bruno Maglis. The girls all went off to their concerts and we went for a smoke afterwards overlooking the Lake of Dreams.

I came back Sunday morning and started feeding the ducks again. At first, I wanted to get unstuck and stubbornly played the same machine till it hit. Now I was on a roll and wanted to play it while it was hot. There was something vaguely wrong with that logic but I couldn’t quite figure out what. I was stuck about $60k on the morning when it dealt me the ten through ace of diamonds.

A dealt royal flush, my first ever, and it was another $240k. Now I was playing on the house’s money, big time, and I decided to just keep riding my streak. I had clubs and diamonds; now I was going for hearts and spades. Royal for the cycle, yeah.

I had to wrap up at eight because the girls had spent the afternoon shopping for me at Nordstrom and wanted me to do a fashion show for them before they went home that night. They were the kind of clothes that would make Paris Hilton drop her cell phone. The girls went home and I had dinner at the Country Club with my friend Barry and the 2004 Justin Isosceles.

Monday morning I got up but my machine was being played by one of the local high-limit players. Bastard. He told me he’d be wrapping up around 9:30 if I wanted to play it then. Oh yeah, I did. I got coffee and came back around 9:30 and started playing. Around ten, a supervisor approached and asked me if the technicians could check something. I wasn’t surprised. When machines pay out like that they always check to make sure the chips are sealed and so on. I cashed out and watched as they opened up the machine. To my great surprise, though, they found something they didn’t like and told me they were going to have to shut it down and change the chip. Apparently it had been set looser than they had intended. They were going to tighten it up, which would take them about an hour. Since I was scheduled to fly out to Reno in the afternoon that seemed like a good place to stop for the weekend with a very, very nice win. The kind that dreams are made of.

Lucky me.

Watch Identity on NBC March 23, 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:58:00 +0000

It is scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, right before the Miss USA pageant. Quiet Lion fans will not be disappointed.

Fireside chat

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:31:00 +0000

I had snapped a photo of her on the job running cocktails at Sapphire, the lounge at Harrah’s Reno. Her uniform top looked like it came from Victoria’s Secret and the way she filled it out it wasn’t going to stay secret for long. So when Gabe said he had plans with Sarah tonight but did I want to come along I didn’t think too hard before inviting them both to join me at the White Orchid, the gourmet restaurant at the Peppermill.

“I like those uniform tops you wear at Sapphire,” I said to the 22-year-old over a trio of tuna tartare and a bottle of 2005 Rombauer Chardonnay.

“Those aren’t a uniform,” she said. “They like us to dress edgy.” I imagined her fishing through her lingerie drawer looking for something to wear to work. I took a gulp of the Chardonnay. Edgy worked for me. We decanted the 2002 Darioush Cabernet to drink with dinner. Sarah had peppercorn New York steak and Gabe and I had the elk, medium rare.

“Is elk some Reno thing?” asked Sarah. She had grown up in Las Vegas and moved to Reno to go to college. People ended up in Reno for some reason or another. Sarah was half-Jewish, half-Lutheran and straightened her hair every other day to keep it from becoming a cascading mass of dark curls. I would have liked to see the curls. There was a lull in the conversation so I asked her if she had ever worked as a stripper. She smiled and shook her head.

“I did do a pole dance once on amateur night,” she said. “But I was flipping my head around and crashed it into the pole.” I could see how that might bring an end to a stripping career. “I have some friends who are strippers,” she said. “You know the worst thing about the job isn’t the customers – it’s the other girls.” Apparently it was a very competitive business and some of them played dirty.

It was 9:15 Sunday night in Reno and we closed the place down. It’s not that there wasn’t a lot of action in the Biggest Little City in the World – it’s that gourmet restaurants weren’t where it was at. But Sarah knew about a little lounge tucked away in the back of the Peppermill called the Fireside Room. She led. We followed.

Like the rest of the Peppermill, the Fireside Room was decorated in lights and colors that were trendy in 1980, either a tribute to the death of disco or what actually killed it. We sat at the large circular booth surrounding the gas fireplace and ordered a 60-ounce scorpion with three straws. The waitress was Brazilian. There was some kind of nutty hotel exchange program going on and Reno was full of Brazilian waitresses for two weeks. She asked if we wanted the scorpion blended or on the rocks. I said rocks and she brought it blended with a quart of whipped cream on top. It tasted like a strawberry daiquiri. I wondered how the Reno girls were faring in Rio de Janeiro.

I had brought a couple of Dunhills so Gabe and I lit up and enjoyed them by the fire. We ordered another scorpion, on the rocks this time. By the time we finished the cigars, Sarah was too warm and wanted to move to a booth away from the fire. There was a thin man sitting alone there so we asked if we could share and he said fine. His name was Chris.

I asked Chris if he lived in Reno and he said no, Nevada City. I pretended I knew where that was. Sarah actually knew. I asked what he did.

“Actually, I’m having some health issues right now and I’m not working.” I looked him over and offered that he looked healthy. “They’re not visible,” he said. “I have about a year to live.” Chris had aneurisms in a couple places on major blood vessels. They could go at any time.

Sarah hailed the Brazilian and asked for a cocktail menu. Without needing to ask what any of us wanted, she ordered two huge drinks that looked like they came from an ice cream parlor for Gabe and Chris, a pomegranate margarita for herself and a pomtini for me. I guess when you run cocktails for a living you get to know what people drink.

Chris said, “I’m trying to decide right now if I want to have an operation. There’s only a 20% survival rate, but if it works—” He motioned like a plane taking off. “I’m good indefinitely.”

I asked if he had found the very best doctor in the world for his condition.

“There’s a guy in Texas,” he said. “He’s done 300 of these. My doctor’s only done two. I would be his third.” He looked down. “And his second survival.”

“Doctors are like auto mechanics,” I said. “For this, you don’t just want someone competent. You want the best in the world.”

Chris nodded. “Funny,” he said. “I used to be an auto mechanic. I worked on Ferraris my whole life.”

“Then you understand,” I said. He nodded.

Sarah asked if Chris would take a picture of the three of us. He did.

“Ferrari will take me back at any time,” he said. “If I get this health problem handled I’d like to go back to work. There’s an opening in Seattle.”

The Brazilian came to tell us she was leaving and had to close out the check. It was late anyway.

“I live in Seattle,” I told Chris, and gave him my name.

“When you get there,” I said, “look me up.”

Interview with a vampire

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:34:00 +0000

He wasn’t sporting a three-day growth of beard because it was trendy, even for thirty-something guys in Reno. He just hadn’t shaved.

He was sitting at the video-poker machine at the end of the row at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, formerly the Reno Hilton, formerly the MGM Grand. He was waiting to be paid for a jackpot when I hit one myself. His face fell. He looked at the five figures flashing on my screen like the captain of the high-school chess team looks at the head cheerleader: it was something he wanted but something he would never get. “You come here a lot?” he asked. Sometimes, I said. I asked his name and, casting his eyes quickly around the room like a kid about to steal a Snickers bar from the candy rack at the drug store, he hesitated and told me.

I asked him if he lived in Reno. “Near here,” he said. “How about you?” I told him Seattle. “My girlfriend – wife, actually – is from Oregon,” he said. “You must get a lot of tax forms playing that big.” I told him yeah, I did. He said, “I do this for a living. I keep all my money in silver. I haven’t filed a tax return for 10 years. You don’t have to file a return. As long as you don’t, they can’t do anything to you.” I said I expected they could throw you in prison. He looked like I’d just dinged the door on his newly restored 1960 Chevy. “No, the income tax is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that.”

I nodded. “Good luck to you, sir,” I said. Then I asked him if he showed an ID when they gave him one of these tax forms. He said yes. “Does it have your address on it?” It’s a mailbox, he said. “Then the mailbox company has your real address,” I said. “Well, they did at one time,” he said. He had moved around a lot. “Aren’t you worried they’ll show up at your mailbox one day and cart you off to prison?”

“What are they gonna do?” he said. “Stake it out for two weeks?

“Maybe,” I said. “If they want you bad enough.” They came with the money and the tax form, which I signed hurriedly like you signed your monthly rent check. He asked if I was married. “Used to be,” I said.

“I have an 18-year-old wife,” he said. “Well, it’s not a legal marriage.”

“Eighteen,” I said. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five.”

I told him I was going to have to put this in my seamy underblog but given the circumstances I wouldn’t use his real name. “I’ll call you Marty,” I said.

“Why Marty?” I shrugged. “Can you call me Scooter? I’ve always wanted to be called Scooter. Wait, on second thought you’d better not. Everybody knows I want to be called Scooter.”

“I’ll call you Marty.” I started playing again and he showed no signs of leaving. “So how’d you meet this 18-year-old, Marty? On the Internet?” He said yeah. “Chat room? ‘Middle-aged guys seek teenage girls who like daddy types’?” His eyes widened like I’d given him a good lead he hadn’t thought of.

“It was actually on a site called VampireFreaks.com,” Marty said. I whipped out my notepad and started scribbling. I wanted to remember this nightmare when I woke up.

“Is that a good place to meet 18-year-old girls?” I asked. He shrugged.

“She was 16 when we met. We chatted online for a couple weeks and then met in person. On her 18^th birthday I drove to Oregon to pick her up and get married.”

“Eugene, Oregon?” I asked.

Marty’s eyes narrowed. “How’d you know?”

I shrugged. “Eugene is where girls like that live,” I said. I looked at him. “Did you consider the possibility that when you got to Eugene you’d find an FBI agent waiting for you?”

“Yeah,” said Marty. I played a few hands of video poker but he was quiet like anything he said could be used against him.

“Why marry an 18-year-old?” I asked.

“We have a lot in common,” Marty said. “We like food, and wine. And sex.”

“Wine?” I said. “But she’s not old enough to drink.”

“Oh, anyone can drink wine,” Marty said. “It’s a religious exemption. The Supreme Court ruled.”

I blinked, but decided not to pursue it. “So what does she do all day when you’re out gambling?”

“Hangs out at home,” he said. “She’s not old enough to come into the casino.” He brightened. “Pretty soon I’m going to buy a sailboat and sail to Hawaii.”

“There’s no gambling in Hawaii,” I said. “What are you going to do for a living?” He shrugged.

“Say,” said Marty, “How’d you like to meet my wife? We could have dinner!” I was in too far to stop now so I said I’d love to. I told him to meet me at the steakhouse at seven. I cashed out and went up to the suite to start writing.

At seven I came down to the steakhouse. I half-assumed they wouldn’t show but Marty was right on time. The vampire girl I expected to be all decked out in Goth but she surprised me by showing up in Gap instead. She was cute with shoulder-length blonde hair and a pink sweater that covered the kind of territory Lewis and Clark would have abandoned their expedition to explore. I’ll call her Natasha. I sat opposite her with Marty in the middle. I ordered 2002 B.V. George Latour. Natasha didn’t get carded although, to be fair, she was almost 19 and looked it.

I told Natasha I expected her to be all Goth and she said she didn’t do that any more. She didn’t like being around all the negative attitudes. She just had the one piercing now, on her belly button. Did I want to see? Of course I did. She lifted her top to show a cute teenage navel with a stickpin through it. I don’t remember much about the stickpin.

“So, do you like vampires?” I asked.

“I am a vampire,” said Natasha.

“I thought you had to kill someone and suck their blood to be a vampire,” I said.

She scrunched her face. “No,” she said sweetly, “you just have to have a fantasy of sucking blood – or wanting your blood to be sucked.” She glanced knowingly at Marty.

“So you had ads posted on VampireFreaks that you wanted to suck each other’s blood?”

“Actually,” said Natasha, “he wanted to deflower a virgin and I wanted to be deflowered.” I ordered a bunch of appetizers to share and, true to Marty’s word, they both enjoyed the food and wine. “I still have my lesbian virginity,” she said. “I keep trying to meet someone online but the ones who want to meet me always turn out to be guys.” I nodded sympathetically.

Natasha suggested we go up to my suite after dinner so Marty could sober up. I figured the worst that could happen was they would kill me, suck my blood, and steal my PIN number, so I led them up. Marty asked for some water and I pointed to the $6 liter of Voss on the counter. He poured himself a glass. Natasha asked for one and he poured one for her too.

We sat on the sofa awhile. Marty was pretty quiet, probably thinking about his sailboat. Natasha took off her shoes and put her bare feet up on the coffee table. With the toenails painted red, I figured if she dangled those feet out a car window they were good for six or seven blocks of gridlock. I snapped a photo and her cheeks turned red to match her toenails but she didn’t move.

Natasha said it was close to her 19^th birthday. Marty piped up. “Yeah, you’re gonna be too old for me.”

“You keep saying that,” said Natasha.

“It’s just a joke,” Marty said.

Natasha turned to me. “There ought to be some limit on how many times you can say something and have it still be a joke.” Marty was silent. I figured she still had a good six and a half years till she was half my age.

Marty excused himself to the T-room and I asked Natasha if she had career plans. “I want to be a wildlife photographer,” she said. “I’m worried about going to Hawaii. There’s not much of the kind of wildlife I want to photograph there.” I didn’t get the whole Hawaii thing. No gambling, no wildlife. It seemed like a pipe dream to me but maybe a pipe dream was better than the reality of this hell-hole called Reno. “He said he was going to get me a camera for my birthday,” she said, “but I think he changed his mind.”

Marty returned and drank the last of the Voss water. At about the same time we all decided it was time to call it a night.

Before they left, Natasha gave me her Myspace address. I gave it 10-1 it wasn’t fake. “You know,” whispered Natasha, pausing at the door, “I don’t let just anyone take pictures of my feet.”

Harrah’s Reno Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

She was a dancer, a redhead. She went by Veronica, but last month it was Victoria. Who knows what it will be next month.

Gabe is my man in Reno. He’s an executive host at Harrah’s, where if you look me up in the computer tiny showgirls wearing pink feathers pop out of the USB ports and do fan dances on the monitor. In Vegas I’m a big player but in Reno, I’m a true whale. When I walk into a casino they quake with fear and drool with greed. This time they got the best of me, to the tune of a year or two’s Ivy League tuition. But Gabe was my man. He made sure I loved coming back to this dilapidated town, the alcoholism capital of the universe, Reno Nevada, the biggest shitty little city in the world. We caught up in the steakhouse over two bottles of 1997 Stag’s Leap SLV Cabernet. The big news was about the redhead. She was getting married.

I remembered very well the night last month we all went to the Keystone Cue and Cushion to shoot some pool and hang out with Kenny, the dying bartender. Kenny was best friends with Brian, the male dancer, who was dating Veronica, whom we kept calling Victoria but never got corrected. Veronica was very friendly and pleasant as I beat her at pool and when I called it a night, leaving the rest of the crew at the bar, she walked me to the door and lingered. I looked her up and down and then looked back inside at Brian and Kyle’s curious eyes. She had the kind of body that made you want to buy a trapeze just to see if you still had any acrobatics left in you. But redheads are bad luck, I thought, and decided to give it a pass as I turned and walked out the door alone. Besides, as tired as I was and as much as I had to drink, it would have taken an hour or more for the Cialis to kick in.

When I had woken the next morning, Kyle heard me making coffee and tiptoed out of his bedroom wrapped in a white towel. “Shh,” he said with a bashful grin. “Victoria’s still here.” Redheads are bad luck, I thought to myself. Kyle told me when I had left it got tense and awkward at the bar. Veronica wanted to play charades to break the tension. Something had to break, because she ended up in my suite with the kid.

I roused myself from my reverie and blinked at Gabe. “She’s getting married?” I said. “To Brian?”

“No,” said Gabe, “to Kenny.” The redhead had dumped Brian and was marrying his dying best friend. That made less sense to me than most nonsense in this crazy town. Why would a dame dump a guy and then marry his dying best friend two weeks later? I texted Kyle with the news but my subconscious was working overtime. Penn Jillette, of Penn & Teller, had told me it only took seven seconds from the moment of the Challenger disaster to the time the first sick joke was posted on the Internet. I felt horrible but it jumped into my throat like a rabid bullfrog and banged on my vocal chords from the inside until I choked it out. “Gabe—” I slapped my hand over my mouth, trying not to say it, but Satan grabbed my arm with his clammy claw and pulled my hand away.

“I married a man in Reno, just…to…watch…him…die…”

Gabe recoiled in horror. I recoiled in horror. I blamed Jenni. She was a comedy writer and had warped my brain.

Gabe and I finished off the SLV and called it an early night.

I forgot all about the redhead the next night when Gabe and I went back to the FQ Men’s Club and partied with a hot 38-year-old Ukrainian named Elena who chain-sipped $10 Pinot Noirs while saying over and over again, “I am bad girl.” Gabe and I drank $7 waters and sat back and enjoyed the show while I smoked a Macanudo. “She’s getting married tomorrow,” Gabe said. “Veronica.” I took a deep puff on the Macanudo and let it out slowly.

The next evening I was ready to see the redhead. Gabe had told me the early, non-topless show “Let the Good Times Roll” was way better than the topless show (if only by virtue of not having a puppet) so we got a comp and went in. The house manager gave me a warm greeting but then sat us way in the back, at a booth where we had to look through people’s heads to see the stage. Gabe went to talk to him and we got moved to the front. I wasn’t sure if Veronica would be there but sure enough she came out smiling and dancing, a real pro. I texted back and forth with Kyle, who still wasn’t sure if I was making the whole thing up. You can’t make this stuff up.

The show was hot – hot enough to make a fat man drop a plate of nachos piled high with guacamole and jack. The girls, including the redhead, changed clothes on stage until you thought the lace on their white underwear would wear off. They started in pajamas, then stripped down to basics, then modeled a wardrobe that would have been on the cover of the catalog if Victoria’s Secret made cheerleading outfits.

Halfway through the show the manager came down and leaned into me. The points on his lapels were sharp enough to spear a boiled shrimp and dip it in cocktail sauce. “Have you been taking pictures?” he yelled through “I can cook too” from Leonard Bernstein’s On the Town. “One of the dancers saw you taking pictures with your cell phone,” he yelled. I had finished texting with the kid and had put my cell phone back in my pocket so I just showed him my empty palms, thinking that would end the kafuffle. It didn’t. The guy persisted, now yelling at another big player we were sharing the table with. That guy was on the verge of tears. He wasn’t a small guy.

The manager turned to Gabe and yelled, “Make sure all photos are deleted.” We were all very confused. My cell-phone camera barely had the horsepower to snap Jimmy Durante’s nose from six inches and I was pretty sure the other guy didn’t even have a camera. They sure were afraid of someone taking grainy pictures of the kind of show you usually see for free on a cruise ship. It didn’t add up, but then not much did in this batty burg.

After the show the redhead didn’t make an appearance in the lobby with the other performers. I guess she was in a hurry to get to her wedding night. Gabe and I had dinner at the Italian restaurant. We tried the 1999 B.V. George Latour. I thought about taking a picture of the label but who knows, they might have called the cops. I thought I could hear the whistle blowing…

As nutty as all this seemed to me, Kyle, stuck back in Georgia going to classes, must have been even more confused. He had called Victoria/Veronica a few times after that magic night a month ago but lately the redhead hadn’t been answering his calls. I was back in my room writing when Kyle messaged me that she was on the phone with him. The hotel wanted her to fill out a security statement about the photo incident and she wanted to know if I had sent him any photos. He told her no and waited for her to bring up her marriage but she didn’t. Finally he asked about it but he didn’t get much of an answer. I guess that was to be expected.

I figure it all came down to the boyfriend, Brian. He was close to the redhead. Maybe even in love with her, who knows. And when you lose the one you love, you look for someone to blame. You can’t blame your best friend, dying of cancer. Maybe you blame the guy with glasses in the front row, the guy enjoying your performance and texting his buddy in Georgia to share the fun.

Or maybe you just hang your head and cry.

Steakhouses are for vegetarians

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 02:04:00 +0000

I tore myself away from Caesars Palace without getting up the nerve to try the new high-tech ubertoilet they had in my Augustus Tower suite (but only in the powder room). Rather than hop back to Seattle in between trips to Vegas and Reno, I jetted over to LA to spend a couple days with my uberhot new sweetie Jenni. I forgot it was the Grammy awards but I found a room at Le Meridien.

Jenni had sent me some old photos, including one I really liked of her taken some years ago in a plaid dress sipping a cosmopolitan. That inspired me to take her to Mastro’s steakhouse in Beverly Hills, one of my favorite restaurants and, to my surprise, one of hers since she has been a vegetarian her whole adult life. “Mmm…sides!” she said, and made the reservations. She surprised me by wearing the same plaid dress and looking fantastic. Well, that didn't surprise me.

We left the $30/day valet parking at Le Meridien and arrived at the $7 valet parking at Mastro's. I asked for the super-double VIP presidential table and they escorted us upstairs to a nice large table far away from the piano player, which is a good location. I got the Chilean sea bass, which I go in and out on loving but I seem to be in a loving phase. We shared a cornucopia of sides including the wasabi mashed potatoes and sugar snap peas.

The cocktails at Mastro’s are huge – I’m guessing about 10 oz. once you refill your glass with the extra they always bring. Jenni tried a “flirt,” a trendy new drink made with vodka, Chambord, pineapple juice, and Champagne. I got a Tanqueray 10 martini with blue-cheese-stuffed olives. The live music is a bit too loud upstairs and the tables are too close together downstairs, but other than that I love the place.

The next evening Jenni suggested we hit Sushi Roku with her roommate Christine, friend Diana, and one of her beautiful 18-year-old twin sisters, Alejandra. No, I’m not making that up. Diana picked us up at Le Meridien and drove us to the restaurant, but when I got there I realized it was only two blocks from the hotel. Welcome to LA! Ale and Jenni ordered veggie and the other girls let me order for them so I selected a bountiful fish feast and a bottle of cold Harushika sake since they didn’t have the Divine Droplets. Harushika used to be my favorite but D.D. ruins you for all other sakes.

Later, we smoked on the comfy sofa out front of Le Meriden and felt the cool Southern California air on our skin. Tomorrow I would fly into the heart of my favorite soap opera: Reno.

Bullshit

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 01:52:00 +0000

I’ve been a Penn & Teller fan as long as I can remember. I’ve seen their show a dozen times, bought their books, shook hands with them after the show, and recently become friends with Penn (the big one who talks) and his beautiful wife Emily. I watched the first season of Bullshit on Showtime religiously (which may not be the best word to describe the work of a rabid atheist) until I canceled my Showtime subscription because that was the only thing I was watching on it. So when Emily invited me to go to the set where they were taping season five, I jumped at the chance.

Bullshit is taped in Las Vegas, in a modest studio located just off the Strip in a small industrial park. I knew I was in the right place when I saw Penn’s fuschia Mini-Cooper (one of three) with license plate “ATHEIST.” There was a gold Lexus SUV with license plate “MOFO” that clearly also belonged to someone with the show (Mofo the gorilla appears in their stage act). Emily pulled up and escorted me in.

I had wondered how they created their signature white-background effect on the show and discovered the straightforward answer: the set had a white background. This caused dirt problems (Penn said never again would he do a show with a white set) and Penn had a pair of magnetic metal over-soles he snapped on to keep his shoes clean while he walked around the rest of the studio. Teller covered a beautiful pair of burgundy Oxfords with more pedestrian surgical booties.

The stars of the show made efficient use of their time, sitting side by side working on laptops during the numerous breaks for scene changes. When we broke for lunch Penn and I discussed movies while he ate a huge plate of rice and vegetables. He was a big fan of ‘60s horror movies which, he said, were the only way for directors to make films with serious social commentary. “A horror film with breasts was an automatic green light,” he said. Lots of guys who wanted to make socially relevant films but had no particular interest in horror discovered that if they wanted to make a movie about, say, feminism, all they had to do was work it into a horror movie with boobs and they got an automatic check.” I was going to have to watch all George Romero’s movies again from that perspective.

As lunch was about over Penn’s friend Otto, of the ventriloquist act Otto and George, arrived to do a bit in the show they were taping in the afternoon. Penn & Teller were calling bullshit on the practice of exorcism, dressed as priests and casting evil spirits out of George the dummy. I stayed to see Otto and George do their bit before excusing myself to go think about making horror movies with boobs.

Heads up

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Having been inexplicably passed over yet again for the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship I decided to play the $200+30 rebuy satellite Saturday at Caesars Palace for one seat in the exclusive field. Only 71 people entered so I had a decent chance of getting into what’s becoming one of the premier events in poker.

My buddy Chad Layne was at my table but was busted early by the charming Alex Vuong, who trapped him with top pair and a better kicker.

Terry Fleischer showed up at the table with 25,000 chips but his wild style didn’t work out so well at this table as people kept showing down big hands against him. He doubled me up playing four-deuce suited but I lost most of my chips when my Presto couldn’t hold up against eight-six flopping two pair.

I put my last few chips in with a raggy queen and got called by the same guy who busted me in one of the season two UPCs by calling with Ace-Ten. Once again, he had Ace-Ten and once again I lost the race and busted 25^th.

It wasn’t so bad to bust at 5:59 p.m. since I had a 6 p.m. dinner invite from Benjie and Mark at Bradley Ogden, conveniently located steps from the poker room at Caesars Palace. I had a steak tartare and Chilean sea bass, both excellent as is pretty much anything I’ve ever had at Ogden. Benjie always lets me pick the wine and I saw no reason to get anything but the 2002 Casa Dalla Valle Cabernet.

After dinner we went to The Producers, the new abridged version that had just opened at Paris. We walked across the street and enjoyed David Hasselhoff’s performance as the flaming director-actor. I was not a big fan of the show when I saw it on Broadway, not loving Mel Brooks’ score, and it’s fair to say that it in my eyes it benefited by being shorter. The acting and production were terrific and I’m sure it will be popular with tourists.

The Ballad of Billy G.

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:49:00 +0000

I’d met Billy G., a rumpled, weathered, fiftyish gambler, up at Lake Tahoe last year. He was playing video poker next to me and bragging about the three porn actresses he had been lounging by the pool with all last week in Vegas. “What business are you in?” I had asked Billy.

“Porn,” he said. He had one of those gravelly, whispery voices that made it seem like everything he was saying was at the very least confidential and quite possibly a state secret.

Billy owned a bunch of web sites where people paid to watch videos of porn actresses. He explained the business to me: “There are about 15,000 porn actresses,” Billy said. “There are another 15,000 wannabes. But there are only 15 bona fide porn stars.” One of these, who went by the name Memphis Monroe, was Billy’s crown jewel. She was one of the top girls at Hustler and Billy had some kind of ancillary rights deal with her that seemed to keep him in gambling money.

Billy wore a Caesars Palace baseball cap, jeans, and a denim jacket with a small sewn-on patch of an eagle that wasn’t quite the Post Office bird or the one on the dollar bill. “What’s that eagle?” I asked. “It’s designer,” he said. “It’s from Guess.”

Billy had flown in from New Orleans, where a friend of his had just been murdered, possibly by the psycho woman he had been shacking up with. Billy went down to the precinct to give them the lead but the detective, Billy said, wanted $5000 to move the case up towards the top of the list. “We got a lot of homicides here,” he said, “and only a few detectives.”

I told Billy I had just been playing at the Rio with no luck and I was taking the evening off from gambling. “I don’t play at the Rio any more,” Billy said. “I got robbed there.” He had a half-empty Corona sitting in front of him but he hadn’t taken a sip the whole time and he didn’t now.

“In your room?” I asked.

Yeah, said Billy. “I had tickets to the big fight. I was driving my daughter back to college in Kansas. Damn car broke down and by the time I got her back and got to the airport I missed my flight. Took the next flight, got into Vegas, cabbed over to Thomas and Mack and got to my seat just in time to see them lift the winner up on their shoulders. I didn’t see one punch.” He looked at me for sympathy, which I gave him.

“So I took a cab to the Rio, where I was staying, checked in, and had one drink at the bar.” He repeated, “One drink! Then I went to the men’s room. I left my drink on the bar.” He shook his head. “Well, you know how these pimps and hos work. They wait back there by the bar where you can’t see them. Then when you go to the bathroom they slip something in your drink. They wait 10 minutes, then they come up to you.” He lightly grabbed my left arm. “ ‘Come with me,’ they say. Richard, I don’t remember one thing. Not one single thing.”

“I slept for a full day. When I woke up, they had taken $4000 in cash and about $8000 in jewelry. But Richard, this drug—” Billy closed his eyes and opened them again. “When I woke up I saw a piece of paper on the floor with four numbers written on it. This drug—” He smiled and shook his head like you do when you wake up and find the team you had that hunch on won in a blowout but you never put down your bet.

“Of course, it was my PIN number. This drug makes you tell them anything and you don’t remember one thing. Not one thing.”

I tried to think of something to say but not one thing came.

Billy leaned back and smiled. “Anyway,” he said. “That’s why I don’t play at the Rio. Hey, give me your cell number so we can hang out when we’re in town.”

I thought quick. “So did they charge anything before you canceled your cards?”

He smiled and nodded slowly. “Gas,” said Billy. “The fuckers charged eight tanks of gas, one right after the other, at the same gas station. Here, give me your phone, I’ll call mine and then we’ll both have each other’s numbers.” I didn’t see any way out of it.

“So,” I said, “Tell me again about those porn stars you lie out with by the pool.” He consummated the mating of our cell phones.

“Not porn stars,” he corrected. “Porn actresses. There are only about 15 porn stars.” He smiled and winked. “And one of them is my girl.”