Bobbye, Peter And The Rabbi
Posted by Al Pastor
02/01/05 Oaks Club $3-6 Hold 'em
3:15-6:00 PM
In $100 Out $200
+$100
Hours Played 2005: 36.5
YTD -$46
Got a very late start today. Acquired a new cell phone and spent the morning programming it and transferring numbers from the old phone and while doing so permitted myself to become engrossed in a DAWSON'S CREEK rerun. By the time I had finished all that, it was time for lunch, so I took a short walk to the neighborhood purveyor of samosas. Dawdled around so that I did not get to the club until 3.
Bobbye was working the board. In addition to her superfluous E, Bobbye is well known for her surliness. I escaped without incurring her wrath today, but there have been days when I was not so lucky. I only had time to read a few pages in THE BROOM, which I still, obviously, have not finished, before she called me for a $3-6 game.
Game was pretty lively and friendly, lots of conversation and good pots. I made a couple of big hands; a well concealed tens full, and a little later, four aces, with a couple of callers all the way to the river. A guy with a Russian accent, whose name I think is Peter, was sitting at my right. He is what is known as a loose-aggressive player, playing loosely and aggressively, and when he represented a flush and I called with three tens and took down a big pot for myself, he grabbed my hand in a kind of overly friendly congratulation. Later, when I made one of those aforementioned big hands, he clutched my wrist in this same sort of assertive celebration. Then the third or fourth time he went all in, he grabbed my hand again to show me his hand, a suited ace-6, with which he had just called a bet and two raises. He finally went broke around 4, but not before giving me a knuckle in the ribs when I took another pot from him. Toward the end, he was mostly tangling with a familiar old guy with a big, white beard and big, square, tortoise-shell frames, who he kept calling Rabbi, and kept asking to do him a mitzvah. When the Rabbi cashed out an hour or so later, he carried 3 racks of chips, about $300 the cashier.
My guess is that Hold 'em gained popularity as a casino poker game because they could seat a lot of players (because each player only receives 2 cards, and five cards make up the board plus three burned cards, a really ruthless casino could conceivably seat as many a 22 players if they had a big enough table, though a casino game is either 9, 10 or 11 handed in almost all cases) and because it plays fast (a good dealer can deal 40 hands an hour if she is really cooking, probably double the amount of 7 card stud), which combined to mean more money for the house. The casino/card room makes money by taking a percentage out of each pot, therefore they have an interest in the pots being bigger and more plentiful. It has remained popular with players because it offers so much strategic possibility.
The game is dealt by an employee of the card room who makes minimum wage plus tips, usually one or two chips, at this table $1 chips, paid from the pot by the winner of the hand. Each player receives 2 cards face down. This is followed by a round of betting, with all bets and raises in $3 increments. The dealer then burns the top card (places it face down in front of her), then turns the next three cards face up in the center of the table. This is called the flop. It is followed by another round of betting, again in $3 increments. Another card is burned, and the next card is turned face up with the flop. This is the turn, or fourth street. Another round of betting, this time in $6 increments. The top card is burned again, and the next card turned up with the others. This is the River, or fifth street. In Hold 'em, as in Mississippi, we live and die by the River. This is followed by another round of betting at $6 a pop. The best poker hand made up of any of the cards on the board combined with any of the cards in players' hands wins the pot.
About half of the dealers are women, as opposed to about 10%/20% of players. Probably half of the dealers are Asian or Asian-American, which mirrors player demographics pretty closely. The chip girls are nearly all women of color, including a very beautiful Ethiopian woman who looks like Olive Oyl. The floor men a are mostly white men, except for Boomer, Kingfish, Bobbye and Shirley (I think).
Wanted to cash out at least doubled up, so I left before I lost too much back. At one point I was up as much as $160.
I will play again during the Superbowl this Sunday, when there will hopefully be lots of loose money lying around for the plucking.
Since the weather turned nice, there are no hookers on San Pablo Avenue.
02/01/05 Oaks Club $3-6 Hold 'em
3:15-6:00 PM
In $100 Out $200
+$100
Hours Played 2005: 36.5
YTD -$46
Got a very late start today. Acquired a new cell phone and spent the morning programming it and transferring numbers from the old phone and while doing so permitted myself to become engrossed in a DAWSON'S CREEK rerun. By the time I had finished all that, it was time for lunch, so I took a short walk to the neighborhood purveyor of samosas. Dawdled around so that I did not get to the club until 3.
Bobbye was working the board. In addition to her superfluous E, Bobbye is well known for her surliness. I escaped without incurring her wrath today, but there have been days when I was not so lucky. I only had time to read a few pages in THE BROOM, which I still, obviously, have not finished, before she called me for a $3-6 game.
Game was pretty lively and friendly, lots of conversation and good pots. I made a couple of big hands; a well concealed tens full, and a little later, four aces, with a couple of callers all the way to the river. A guy with a Russian accent, whose name I think is Peter, was sitting at my right. He is what is known as a loose-aggressive player, playing loosely and aggressively, and when he represented a flush and I called with three tens and took down a big pot for myself, he grabbed my hand in a kind of overly friendly congratulation. Later, when I made one of those aforementioned big hands, he clutched my wrist in this same sort of assertive celebration. Then the third or fourth time he went all in, he grabbed my hand again to show me his hand, a suited ace-6, with which he had just called a bet and two raises. He finally went broke around 4, but not before giving me a knuckle in the ribs when I took another pot from him. Toward the end, he was mostly tangling with a familiar old guy with a big, white beard and big, square, tortoise-shell frames, who he kept calling Rabbi, and kept asking to do him a mitzvah. When the Rabbi cashed out an hour or so later, he carried 3 racks of chips, about $300 the cashier.
My guess is that Hold 'em gained popularity as a casino poker game because they could seat a lot of players (because each player only receives 2 cards, and five cards make up the board plus three burned cards, a really ruthless casino could conceivably seat as many a 22 players if they had a big enough table, though a casino game is either 9, 10 or 11 handed in almost all cases) and because it plays fast (a good dealer can deal 40 hands an hour if she is really cooking, probably double the amount of 7 card stud), which combined to mean more money for the house. The casino/card room makes money by taking a percentage out of each pot, therefore they have an interest in the pots being bigger and more plentiful. It has remained popular with players because it offers so much strategic possibility.
The game is dealt by an employee of the card room who makes minimum wage plus tips, usually one or two chips, at this table $1 chips, paid from the pot by the winner of the hand. Each player receives 2 cards face down. This is followed by a round of betting, with all bets and raises in $3 increments. The dealer then burns the top card (places it face down in front of her), then turns the next three cards face up in the center of the table. This is called the flop. It is followed by another round of betting, again in $3 increments. Another card is burned, and the next card is turned face up with the flop. This is the turn, or fourth street. Another round of betting, this time in $6 increments. The top card is burned again, and the next card turned up with the others. This is the River, or fifth street. In Hold 'em, as in Mississippi, we live and die by the River. This is followed by another round of betting at $6 a pop. The best poker hand made up of any of the cards on the board combined with any of the cards in players' hands wins the pot.
About half of the dealers are women, as opposed to about 10%/20% of players. Probably half of the dealers are Asian or Asian-American, which mirrors player demographics pretty closely. The chip girls are nearly all women of color, including a very beautiful Ethiopian woman who looks like Olive Oyl. The floor men a are mostly white men, except for Boomer, Kingfish, Bobbye and Shirley (I think).
Wanted to cash out at least doubled up, so I left before I lost too much back. At one point I was up as much as $160.
I will play again during the Superbowl this Sunday, when there will hopefully be lots of loose money lying around for the plucking.
Since the weather turned nice, there are no hookers on San Pablo Avenue.
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