I’ve been working on the railroad,
All the livelong day,
I’ve been working on the railroad,
Just to pass the time away.
As I sat down, the nose-tingling aroma of egg drop soup drifted toward across the table toward me. “What’s for lunch?” I asked the two women. They looked up from their food and eyed me warily.
“Chicken teriyaki bowl,” one of them said. With soup on the side, obviously.
This wasn’t a lunch counter or restaurant. It was a poker room in a southern Las Vegas casino but the two women were eating between hands. They had their food perched on a small table near the poker table.
So we returned to the game at hand. I caught a lucky break early when my A-J held up and won a nice pot on a board of J-6-6-10-K. One of the women had Q-J and paid me off.
Then the game turned into a slugfest, and I mostly became a spectator, winning a few small pots, trying to avoid the danger that lurks in every hand. I watched as a familiar face three-bet a hand and then went all-in on a flop of 6-5-2 with two diamonds. The guy who had originally raised, who was wearing an OU cap and watching their football game on his phone, went deep into the tank. He thought and thought and thought.
The three-bettor was amiable, dark-skinned guy wearing an Army Retired cap and a Polo-style shirt emblazoned with the ace of spades. He also sported several flashy rings. He chatted up the guy who had initially raised. “Whether you call or not, I’ll show you,” he said.The initial raiser thought and thought and thought. “I called with the same hand yesterday and lost my entire stack,” he said.
The three-bettor smiled broadly and shuffled his cards. “I’ll show you either way,” he said. Finally, the raiser turned up pocket queens and threw them into the muck. True to his promise, the three bettor showed his hand. He had A-J of diamonds. “I had lots of cards to catch,” he said. The initial raiser just shook his head.
So we played on through the afternoon. There were college football games on nearly every screen, but I tried to persuade a chip runner to turn one of the monitors to the Yankees-White Sox game. I was laying the heavy chalk — not really a smart bet — and had my lunch money on the Yankees. She explained to me that nearly every monitor was spoken for, but she would try. A few minutes later, she returned with a tablet computer and made the baseball game appear. I tipped her a brown dollar chip.
After winning a few small pots and losing just as many, my chip stack was about back to where I had started. Funny how that works when the house takes a generous cut of every pot whether you win or lose. I tried to steal the blinds from the button with 5h-3h. But an Asian guy I see often three-bet me. This guy is always in the poker room. For him, it’s like working on the railroad.
I was almost tempted to call since even as a 2-1 ‘dog, I could get lucky. But the price wasn’t good for a trash hand. So I gritted my teeth and folded. Then I raised with A-Q offsuit, but another guy three-bet me. He was short-stacked, and I credited him with A-K or a pair, neither of which match up well with A-Q. (Of course, he might have just wanted me to think he had A-K, but I knew that, and he knew I knew that.)
I looked up the monitor. The Yankees had taken an early 1-0 lead, but the White Six had tied it.
Then a new guy joined the table and sat down to my right. He dug into his pockets and dumped a huge pile of chips, including black ($100) and green ($25) onto the table in front of him. The dealer and several players reminded him that the initial buy-in was capped at $300 at this room. He also had a half-empty Budweiser with him. Finally, he put his black chips back into his pocket, but he still had more than the officially allowed buy-in. “Just put the green in your pocket,” I suggested. And he did that.
“I don’t know that I’m doing,” he said. “I just wanted to mess around.” That, of course, was chum on the water. An unsmiling regular with a deeply pockmarked face, looked at him like a turkey vulture would look at a fresh water buffalo carcass. “Don’t worry,” the Army Retired guy said amiably. “It’s Vegas.”
I was on the button and looked down at Kh-10h and raised 3.5x the big blind. The Asian guy who was just working on the railroad called, And the new guy with the half-empty Bud called. The flop came K-3-J with two diamonds I fired a healthy-sized continuating bet and the Asian guy folded. But the new guy called quickly. The dealer burned and turned an another king fell on the turn. I bet about half the size of the pot, and the new guy called again. Sheesh, what does he have? A king with a bigger kicker? A diamond draw? It wouldn’t be pocket jacks would it? Regardless, the dealer burned and turned one more time and an apparently harmless heart 4 fell on the river.
The new guy checked, and I was done with betting. I checked behind. “Just a pair of threes,” the new guy said as the table watched in amazement. Whew. I turned up my trip kings, and the dealer started shoveling me the pot. Just then, I looked up at the monitor, and the Yankees had taken a 2-1 lead. Whew again.
The game was starting to turn interesting with the new guy, but I had had enough fun for the day. I cashed out, letting a brunette server who had her tokes for the day cut in front of me, and turned the Challenger GT down the freeway with the adaptive cruise on and the setting sun in my face. I tried to pick up the Yankees-White Sox game on the radio, but the announcer on VSiN was rattling on about the LSU-Clemson football game. Amazing, how some people just natter on about stuff.-:)
In fact, when I was wheeling the Challenger GT into the garage, I checked the phone to discover the White Sox had tied the game at 2, and the game was in extra innings. Whew. In fact, it wasn’t until later when I cleaned up and was having a cold beverage, I finally saw the finally score: The Yankees won, 5-3, in 11 innings.
Can’t you hear the whistle blowing?
Rise up so early in the morn’
Can’t you hear the whistle blowing?
Dina, blow your horn.
Lyrics to “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” by Kenneth M. Burgonmaster
