The latest report I’ve seen on the WSOP can be found here – good news…I think!

The $4-$8 Holdem games are really unbelievable. Too much action wouldn’t even express what’s going on in them. Grab a blindfold and fire up those chips, baby!

I felt a little bad for one guy the other night. He raised pre-flop with A-10 and ended up heads up with J-J.

The Flop was A-K-little, the Turn a Queen, and the River a 10.

The Jacks checked, the Aces Up bet. The worst of the worst that could have happened for the Aces up, did. The A-K-Q-10 were all diamonds and the Jacks held the Jack of diamonds.

The Jacks turned into a Royal Flush and raised, the Aces up raised, the Royal raised…end result already known.

The worst scenario got him on the next hand. He held 8-8 and the Flop was Q-Q-8. He ran into quads…beat by four Queens. He lost a lot of his chips on both hands but he took it very well and even rebounded to win a pot before I left.

*****

Tonight I drifted into Table 26, a table built for Stud which would hold eight players, now crammed to the hilt with 10 players for a $4-$8 Holdem game. The dealer I was following always leaves the game in a total uproar and it was going to take me a few minutes to get it back in shape. Immediately…without question or doubt…the 3s was the noise and confusion, talking, raising, more talk, more noise. He was full of it – and himself. In his 30’s, uproariously jubilant and filled with life, he was the one that held the key to game control.

He lipped off and made a lot of noise; a few minutes into my down, he informed me that the 2s would deal and I could just leave. I queried, “Did you buy Bellagio?”

He didn’t get what I was aiming at so we went into explanations. Another player replied, “Not as of yesterday, he didn’t.”

I followed with, “Well if you did buy it, then I would know you were my employer and that I could leave…since you didn’t, I think I’d better stay.”

He jumped on that, “…you are more sarcastic than I am…”

I replied that I was pretty good at it.

He retorted that he would take it as long as I plugged my ears and hummed.

I quietly replied, directly to him, “There’s no reason to be mean.”

He didn’t say a word for a few minutes. I shuffled and dealt. The game went on.

He began, “Linda doesn’t like me. She’s put me in my place and she’s not going to take my bullshit.”

I replied, “We’re going to get along just fine. Just relax and play the game.”

He did…and we did.

He told the table that I made him think about what he was saying and very few people ever did that. He said, “Except for the ring on her finger, that’s my wife sitting there,” as he motioned towards me.

He didn’t mean I looked anything like his wife…it was metaphorical…but what a compliment.

The 2s thought we were trying to romance each other. I said that he (the 3s) had on a wedding ring and I never messed with married men…they had already been messed with enough.

The 2s said he didn’t think so. I replied that I meant mentally. He agreed.

The 3s turned over outrageous hands and won a lot of huge pots, like beating K-K with 10-6, and a few other hands that would’ve made the Poker God shudder.

At one point, he lost a hand with Q-3 off suit…imagine that! A woman in the 6s started coughing and choking. He looked at her and exclaimed, “You were going to lip off and God grabbed you by the throat, that’s why you’re choking!”

It was pretty funny. He was far from oafish or stupid. He didn’t always have the greatest hand selection but he was never afraid to put chips in the pot.

I asked his name as I left the game, Todd, from Minnesota. We were friends.

The 2s lives in San Diego and is moving to Vegas.

The whole world should move to Vegas. Poker is where it’s at and it ain’t going away. See you there!