EPT
Ettiquete is very imporant in this place. Tipping is a must almost (not every hand you win, but anything sizable u give the dealer 10 bucks). If you lay a huge beat on someone giving them back 50-500$ of what you took from them is normal depending on how bad of a beat it was and how much you like the guy. People often act out of turn by folding too fast, or folding sloppily and their cards flipping over. They also string bet like hell. When showing hands they often show one card but not the other, and often muck when they are supposed to open their hands first. This stuff really pisses me off. But no one says anything because everyone does it, except me of course, but I am an average of 25-30 years younger than everyone and if I didn't know these guys I'd be scared as hell of them so I can't say anything about their terrible table nuances. You just gotta accept it the way it is. Its not every day you get to play in a 10/20 2k min buy with fish who try to raise to 320 preflop every single hand.
Anyways, at 1:30 AM about two hours into the game, a white guy I had seen a long ass time ago playing 1/2 NL in another casino strolls in. This guy is short, relatively ugly, mildly fat, and you can just tell he got picked on when he was a kid by the way he talks. If I could recall correctly he played tight as hell and was scared of money, but if he has a big hand he will bet huge (relatively compared to his small stack buyin). He asks......
"What are you guys playing, 1/2, 5/10?"
One of the koreans respond "Man - E-man" which translates to 10/20.
The kid looks befuddled and takes a moment to think to himself then asks, "What is the minimum buyin." I tell him two-thousand and then he shrugs and says well then I'm not gunna play. One of the nicer guys at the table who speaks english asks him,
"How much are you willing to play?" and he thinks and replies "a thousand." The Korean then asks all the other guys at the table in korean if its okay if he buys in with 1000$ and everyone agrees to let him play. He fuddles through his pockets and wallet and finally manages to gather 100 manwons (korean 10$ bills...the maximum normal currency size lol) which is 1000$ roughly. He takes a seat and the manager brings him his chips. The kid looks around in awe as several people have 10k+ stacks and the standard pre-flop raise is 1/3rd his buyin. Naturally he makes small talk with me all the way across the table commenting on my 'huge stack.' I let him know that being up 3,000$ in this game is absolutely nothing. The other day ten of us played 10/20. Three of us won together 67,000$ the other seven lost that much...seven people losing five buyins average in a 10/20 game live in one night. That is incredibly sick. Kid says to me (note by kid he is still a few years older than me I just have zero respect for him),
"just Gotta play tight!" with a gay smile that let me know immediately he was Canadian. I "Heh"'d him and didn't talk to him much after that.
About his seventh hand in he raises it up to 180$ preflop and gets two callers. Flop slams down A72 and he bets two hundred into the two callers. First guy folds and the second guy puts him all-in for 600 more.
"Damn...you got those trip sevens?...."
"....."
Thinking thinking thinking. The kid counts the chips in the pot, distraughtfully plays with his remaining 600$ in 4 black 100$ chips and 20 red 10$ chips. Note the player who raised him is the utmost fishiest guy in the game and he had 10k infront of him (he was already down 10k at that point...10k anger-rebuy for him).
Finally, with a look of disgust the kid calls and flips over Ace-King. I look at the guy next to me, a korean gangster, and we both give eachother looks that say "what the fuck was that fucking moron thinking about, of course he shoud call...600$, el oh el." Needless to say the fish who raised him all-in had A6 off suit and AK took the pot down. The kid makes a circle with his lips and blows out air in a huge sigh of relief, and rakes in the pot with his hands shaking like hell. One guy starts calling the guy with A6 a "byungshin" (fucking retard) and they both have a good laugh over the small pot he just lost.
Edward Shakeyhands then gets a call in which he mumbles in the lowest volume possible to possibly his gay lover that he just won a 'huge' pot then says he's busy and hangs up. All the korean guys are just looking around, saying nothing, but every single one of their eyes' said "WE WANT THIS WHITE MOTHER FUCKER'S STACK." The bloodhounds were THIRSTY for his 2200$.
Two hands later our star raises once again, this time to 240$ preflop. I stare down at AQo and muck it without hesitation, and the guy to my left makes it 600 to go. Tighty-whitey then reraises 400 more to 1000$. Re-raiser calls. Obviously tighty-whitey has AA or KK at this point...but perhaps the korean wasn't smart enough to realize this. The Flop thunders down 992 and they both get it all-in. Kid has KK and korean guy has QQ. KK takes it down and the white pride now has a 4500$ stack after 10 hands sitting down with 1000$. A lively underground smoke filled poker room that is normally filled with laughter and insults to and from people who just don't give one fuck about anything money related was now quiet as the night. I felt the anger radiating out of them. But our hero broke the silence by saying to the guy, "I knew you had queens or jacks, tough spot for you." After getting no response other than a look he promptly shut up.
After 10 more hands the shaking white warrior had cooled down and got up from his seat and paced around the other area of the casino on the phone (once again, presumably his gay lover) most likely bragging about how much money he just won. Then he dissapeared for a while, maybe taking a shit, maybe taking a fake shit, maybe a little of both. Upon return he came back with two plastic chip racks and says "sorry guys, I gotta go."
Lets just realize that in a place of such ettiquete among players hit-n-running is FORBIDDEN. Especially after they let him min-buy for 1000$ when the real minimum was 2000$. There is even a casino rule on the wall stating that the player must call "round" and play one more round of blinds before leaving. He did not even do this.
There are some mumbles "CASHOUT?" The nicer korean guy says "you're leaving after 20 hands?" The kid says "yeah I really gotta go sorry." The two korean gangsters that I hadn't seen until today looked at eachother with cocked heads, and one said "I CASHOUT TOO." The other one then immediately bellowed "I TOO CASHOUT." I didn't like the kid either in the first place, but this made me want to join them.
Then as they were standing up one said in Korean, "we are going to go get our money back from that foreigner mother fucker."
To encourage them I replied in the most manner form of korean "Please do so!" with a smile. The table instantly burst out in laughter which lasted longer than it should have. I didn't intent this to be a joke, I was serious, but I guess given the circumstances to people who did not realize the other white guy could speak korean well enough to understand them and understand what they were doing. Then the one guy asks in english "YOU SPEAK KOREAN?" I said no and he said "BUT YOU KNOW WHAT WE GUNNA DO?" other one says
"DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM? ITS NOT RIGHT. ARE U HIS FRIEND?"
"hell no"
After I reply I see the door going out shut and lock and the kid briskly walk away at a high pace.
The guys then don't even bother to pick up their chips and cashout and run up the stairs and out the door. At first I didn't really think they were going to do anything when I encouraged them to go kill him, I just wanted to let them know I agreed that the kid was a fuck. But I started to feel really bad at this point. Oh well, it was outa my hands.
Five minutes later they came back empty handed, and the fat one huffing and puffing heavily stated how the bandit escaped.
As much of a sucker the kid was I was relieved that he escaped, maybe he did deserve a beating but who knows, maybe he really did have a good reason for leaving. But if I did not stall those guys inadvertantly from going after him, he would have gotten wallopped and would have been powerless to do anything about it as he is a rodent english-teacher on foreign ground in a tightly-knit culture. By encouraging them to kill I prevented them from killing. My own anger at the kid was transformed into guilt and then relief and then satisfaction.
I am a saint. But boy oh boy, I sure hope that guy never comes back.
p.s. This is a TRUE story, 100%. I have no idea why I'm writing it but it was rather eventful to me atleast and I'm bored. I hope you enjoyed. By the way I endedup losing the 7,000$ I had that night and went home happily.
