The Boaster's Just Reward, A Tale of Las Vegas

The first time I stepped foot into The Bellagio in Las Vegas I made a beeline straight to the Poker Room in the hope of glimpsing the players that I have been studying intently as they competed in tournaments on TV. To my surprise, it just happens that The WPT is holding the first day of its Championship $25,000 buy-in tournament that very day. That being the case every big name Poker player in existence is in The Bellagio. If you can name them, I saw them. While standing on the rail watching a deep-stacked 5/10NL game I look to my left and see Doyle Brunson. I tell Lisa who he is and she immediately starts chatting with him. I introduce myself and tell him how much I enjoyed Super System 2. We speak a few words, he smiles; gives me a CD to install the app for his Poker Site Doyle's Room, then gets on his motorized wheelchair and speeds off across the casino floor.

While I am watching him fade into the distance, I hear a commotion going on behind me. It seems that a boisterous player at the 5/10NL game who is wearing a NY Yankees hat is speaking with an immediately recognizable NY accent. He is informing the table of his prestigious position with a BMW dealership in Northern New Jersey and generally bragging about his status as the top salesman in the region. He continues with talk of his home game in Verona. On how he gives a PokerStars hat to the winner's of his $100 buy-in tournament. At this point, I am in a state of peaked interest so I walk into the room to watch him play a few hands, and to give him my email address and cell number in the hopes of a possible invitation to his game. After making my introduction on the next hand, he pulls in a monster pot, and I mean monster. There were so many chips that it took him 5 or 6 hands to stack them and he had to use both arms to pull them in. The pot must have been close to $3000. I look around the rest of the table and it seems that everyone is sitting behind about to 2 to 3 thousand dollars and he is the big stack with about 6 or 7. Everyone has piles of chips and Hundred Dollar Bills underneath. After he wins that big pot, he calls for the waitress and said "Hey beautiful, bring me a bottle of Johnny Walker Black".

He was lit up and the waitress knew it, she just smiles and said "ok", she never did bring a bottle but instead a Whiskey glass filled to the rim with what must have been at least a triple. At this point I am very interested in the game, he his chirping like a happy bird and I was curious to see what was going on. The cards are dealt and he looks at his hand and said " You know I have a lot of arguments about this hand with my cousin, he says it is a garbage hand, but I always tell him that I like it so I'm going to play it" he raises it up to somewhere in the vicinity of $60. He is re-raised to $200 from a young guy who I later find out is from Connecticut and plays at Foxwoods. It is folded back to him and he says, "Oh so you are the big man aren't you with the $200 raise, well you know what? I'm gonna call you and I don't care what my cousin thinks." he calls the raise and the flop comes Js As, 2d, action is to him he checks and said "OK big man with the $200 raise what are you going to do? He checks. The turn comes 5s. He now looks at his cards, picks them up slightly off the table, and angles them so I can see. At this point, I am in the hand and put on an expressionless face. He checks again, the raiser bets $200, action back to him he said "OK, Big man now I’m going to tell you something, and I'm also going to tell my cousin something when I get back about this hand, Right now I got the stone cold nuts, and I’m going to tell you what I'm going to do first. I'm going to put you all-in and you are not going to be able to stop yourself from calling and when you do call I'm going to take whatever you have in front of you (He looks at his stack) oh you have some hundreds under there, very nice. Like I was saying I'm going to take everything you got and you see this (he pulls a 100 dollar bill from beneath this stack) after I take all your money I'm going to give you this because I am a gentleman. I'm All-in" The kid's face turns red, he buries his face in his hands and begins shaking. He his sitting with about $2500 in front of him, now his face is getting beet red and sweat his pouring from his forehead. He said "I call" and flips over his JJ giving him a set but in his eyes I can see he still feared the worst. The dealer flips over the river that does not improve his hand. The Player said " I knew you were going to call, there was no way you were not going to do it, and me being a gentleman, I’m going to keep to my part of the bargain" he flips over Ks7s giving him the nut flush. The kid gets up and starts looking around frantically back and forth, he walks 10 feet in one direction and then back and then back again, he is in a state of hysteria and finally calms down from his walking fit at the end of the table by the rail. Now the player said, "Hey come over here remember what I said, here is that 100 dollar bill." He said, "I don't care I'll take it". He sits back down and buys in for $100, which I do not even think is allowed due to it not being the min buy in at the table, but the dealer takes pity on him and gives him the chips. I shake the players hand, tell him nice job, and remind him to get in contact with me when he gets back home.

I leave The Poker Room and head over to the Fonatana Hall where the WPT tournament is about to begin. Lisa and I sneak in and I watch all the top players for the first hour of play, which is up to the first break. At this point, I have had enough of watching people play poker so I head back to the Poker Room to see how the Player is doing. I take one look at him and know there is a problem. His face is white, the smile is gone, and the chirp is silent. As soon as I see his stack, it is confirmed. Within one and half-hours he has gone from an around $9000 stack to less than $400. He sees me and gives me a wink, and I just nod. I do not think I will be playing in his home game.