Tidbits from Tunica

Just some quick gems from the last few days:

It’s interesting to see how the “Yankees” (for this instance we will call anyone not from the South a “yankee”, especially since Iggy always calls me a “cracker”) like to joke about our pattern of speech around here. When the brush at the Gold Strike said they were “fixin’ to open up a new Omaha table,” the guy beside me said, “What’s he fixin’ to do?” “We’re always fixin’ something down here,” I told him.
Ran into Stuart Satterfield last night. He dealt to me at a 10-20 game (another loser for me.) Blog readers may recall that he and his brother had the “bad beat table” at the WSOP that provided great entertainment for unfortunate poker players (see the July postings.) Stuart was in between jobs at the time; he now works here. His brother got a job in Oklahoma.

I’ve run into other familiar faces lately. Dick from Maryland, the guy who kept harassing Ann at Foxwoods, played in a 15-30 game with me. No word yet on whether he’s been chasing Delaney around.

Played in the best $10-$20 limit game ever at the Grand two nights ago. I won $900 in two hours, beating up on a couple of Auburn graduates in the process. It would have been worse except for this hand. Me: Q-Q. Auburn grad: 8-7. Board: 8-2-8-Q-8.

Played the $500 NLHE shootout at the Grand yesterday. Started out strong. Doubled off a guy with buck teeth, jug ears and “Amanda” tattooed on his neck when he called a big raise with Jd-7d and the subsequent post flop flush draw. Then doubled again when an aces limper (mwa ha ha) lost to my flopped set of fours. But my chips got salted away and Eddie, a former dealer from Biloxi (now out of a job), ran away with our table. He was a nice guy and I was glad if I couldn’t win it that he did. I don’t know how he ultimately fared, but he had a 1 in 22 shot at $29,000 and a $10,000 main event seat after winning the table. Wisdom from Eddie: “A tournament is a mine field. You’ve got to get lucky and dodge all the mines.”

As we played the shootout, an arrogant player from Colorado let loose with an F-bomb and got a 10-minute penalty. After busting out while trying to bluff Eddie he said, “Fuck this tournament.” Later, a guy who had busted out at another table walked by and asked the dealer, “Is the F-bomb rule in effect after you bust out?” When hearing a reply in the negative, he let loose as he walked away, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck….”

Played a satellite with a dealer whose Atlanta game was robbed of $30,000 by "bulging eyed crackheads," as he called them. Understatement of the year: "It's definitely not a good thing when someone's got a gun at your head, that's for sure."

Talked to Minh Nguyen briefly as he smoked yesterday. Don't think he remembered our previous conversation. He said he wasn't running well. "All I get is king-eight."

There's a lot of online poker playing going on around here. Everyday you see several people with laptops in the cyber center going at it. Bunch of degenerates....I believe Bodog is calling me...

There is some VIP party for Men Nguyen tonight in a suite here that seems to be mainly for the reason of plugging a new online poker site, Poker 4 Ever. I’ll have to sneak up there for free food and a report on the action.

So far, so bad for me. Down about $1,500 or so. Got to cash in a tournament!