A lost prop bet and a broken arm

“A Clever Man Commits No Minor Blunders” -Goethe


Wow, yesterday was one of the craziest days of poker and life in general I’ve ever had. It started early in the morning when we moved out of the Rio and to the Panorama Towers. We had to meet some shady guy with a mullet to transfer the keys to us for this place in an In N Out Burger. Also, this place has high security so it took us about 10 minutes to explain who we were and why we were on property. The residents of the property are not allowed to rent their condo’s to strangers, so we have to tell anyone who asks that we are friend’s of Fifi, the women who owns our unit.

Anyways, the place is sick, it has a huge balcony overlooking the strip and 3 LCD TV’s. The garage of this place is full of 6 figure cars, all the residents are always dressed to the nines (I think that’s a saying,) and the women look amazing J . We are usually walking around in khaki shorts and t-shirts so we sort of stick out.

After we moved in, we spent the day running around the strip. First, we went to the Venetian wish had a $2,000 deep stack tourney. We were hoping the tourney would create a lot of big side action. Unfortunately, so many people entered they had no tables left for side action. After this Jared, Dave (Jared’s friend who’s out here), and I headed to the Bellagio to stomp on some donkeys. We got there too late in the day though and had a 2 hour wait on the 30-60 tables. We ended up back at the Rio, which is where all the fun began.

The WSOP is held in a huge convention center separate, but connected, from the casino. They have one huge room (The Amazon Room) which hosts all the tournaments and cash games, a 2nd room for their nightly tournaments, and a 3rd room used for WSOP satellites. I wanted to sign up for the $1500 NL event taking place Saturday, so I decided to give the satellite room a whirl. I signed up for a 10 man $275 sit n go. For some reason I was actually nervous I was going to be dead money in thing. As it turns out, these people were fucking awful. There was 4 people limping, people looked at me crossed eyed when I had the gull to raise, and I got in a fight with 5 people at the table for defending some donkey betting out when another player was all in. They were arguing it was more important to knock a player out in 10th (I.e. check the hand down among the remaining players) than play your hand to win (betting out.) They are all morons, but when dealing with morons it becomes clear they aren’t changing their opinions. Anyways, as the blinds increased I dwindled after losing a coin flip, but then recovered winning 77 vs. KQ. With about 5 people left and blinds rising I just started running over the table. I was raising 40-50% of the hands and not making many friends. With 3 people left I got coaxed into a 3 way chop which guaranteed everyone $500 out of the total prize pool of $2650. This was done with the intention of chopping more of the pot when the tournament was down to 2 players. I went on to crush my 2 opponents, having my A3 hold up vs. QJ in the only pot that could have dented me. So, I won my $1500 buy in to the WSOP event for Saturday.

The rest of night was fucking hilarious. After buying in to the tournament for the next day, I met up with Jared and Greg (Wild Duck from the Dog) who were already drinking a bit. Needless to say we spent the next 2-3 hours getting real tuned up and telling degenerate gambling stories and cool poker stories (I am sure they are only cool to us.) David had entered a nightly $330 in the MTT room so we were just waiting for him to bust then we were going to head home. In the mean time the 3 of us decided to sit down at 2-5 NL ($500 max buy in) table and play some drunken poker. For the first time in my life we were definitely “that guy” at the table. We were loud, drunk, recklessly raising every pot, laughing at other peoples play, and generally being arrogant about the level of play. Somehow, I managed to get stuck $1,000 in about 90 minutes. Jared and Duck were up about $400 each, which was pissing me off because I couldn’t believe I was going to leave this game down a significant amount of cash. Luckily, what happened next will go down in Tommy2tyme poker history. In the span of 6 hands, I picked up AA, 99, 77, 33, and 97. I doubled up with AA, flopped a set winning a 500 pot with 99, flopped a set cracking some idiots slow play with 77, taking and winning a $200 coinflip with 33 putting a guy who got it in with A6, and 2 barrel bluffing with 97 to take down a nice pot. After 10 minutes I went from down $1,000 to up $400. This was certainly enough for me, and we took our drunk asses to go watch Dave, who was surprisingly still alive in the tourney.

It was 2 a.m. and there was like 20 people left in this tourney, which meant it could last until 5. We debated whether we should leave Dave or watch him finish and decided to keep drinking and watch him. Being the degen’s that we are we ended making prop bets. It started with Jared challenging me to hurdle 2 chairs for $20, I told him I couldn’t do it but offered him the same bet. We set the chairs up side by side, with both chair backs on the outside (which if any of the 3 of you can visualize, makes it much tougher to leap.) The bet was you couldn’t touch the chairs at all and had to touch down past the chairs. We said you could straddle them if you wanted (spread eagle as you jump over.) Anyways, his first effort missed, but I gave him a second chance and he hit it. Things were sort of escalating at this point as all the other degenerates in the room saw this happening and obviously became intrigued by the Drunken Degen Olympics taking place. At this point I made an open offer laying 5:1 that no one could leap 3 chairs without touching. Some 30 year old, I have never seen in my life and will never see again offered to take the challenge. He was a dirty dude, with a buzz cut, some raggedy clothing, and basketball shorts on. I had a feeling I was getting hustled, but honestly did not believe the leap could be made. We put the $120 on the table and signed up an impartial judge for the official ruling. With about 20 onlookers, many who were still in the tourney (It was down to 6 people at this point) this dirtball degen backed up 100 feet to the far wall of the convention room and began in a dead sprint at the chairs. I fully expected him to attempt to hurdle the chairs likely knocking one down before landing awkwardly. What happens next could only be placed in the degenerate hall of fame, I would pay money to have it on tape. The guy leaps head first out of his dead spring (think Superman,) lifting his back legs over the 3 chair before crumbling in a heap. I think the entire room had their jaws hanging open. He had supermanned the 3 chairs, the audience was stunned, but he had also taken a head first spill into the concrete floor.

The aftermath of this event was 3 fold. First, I handed him the $120 and congratulated the valiant effort. Next, we were immediately kicked out of the tournament room for causing such shenanigans‘. As we walked out I continued talking to this degen who had just relieved me of the $100. He was in some serious pain and was complaining that he may have broke his arm. I took a look at it as I tried to finally stop laughing. His arm was messed up pretty bad. He hobbled off as 4 other on lookers came out to talk to me. They all asked me if he was ok, to which I asked why. They said when he had landed they heard a loud snap and thought he broke his arm!! They also, said they were 99% sure he grazed the 3rd chair as he flew over the top. I considered chasing the guy down for the $120, but I decided the $100 I gave him won’t even begin to cover his medical expenses. Not to mention, the entertainment I got from the event itself was worth the price of admission. The night wrapped up around 5 am, with Dave chopping the tournament 3 ways and making $11,000, making it his biggest win ever. Jared, Greg, and I, continued drinking and dicking around making random bets until the end of the night, none which could match the guy breaking his arm.

Random Thoughts

I went to bed at 6 and got up at 10 in preparation for this tournament, I think I am still drunk.

I am in physical terrible health after 3 nights in Vegas (See above)

Immediately after I was kicked out of the tournament room, we saw a 300 pound man being escorted out of the Rio wearing nothing but whitey tighties and a wife beater on. Unfortunately, he had also lost a prop bet, but was not allowed to continue playing.

I am gonna have to figure out a way to upload some pictures, Jared forgot his cord.

Sorry if this sucks, it’s turning into more of a vacation summary than exciting blog. Also, the writing probably sucks right now since I feel like I’m on crack.