Day Nine

It takes two days of willpower to go back to one-three. It lasts about an hour and half.

When I first hit bankroll disaster in 2021, it was part of a wake-up call, an action to save many irons and more than one person. I had been trying to rescue the restaurant venture and the unsober Lounge Lizard and the Grandma apartment and to drink and smoke and fight and do it all under the groan of suicidal depression. I pleaded to the non-existent god for help, and of course he sent nothing.  I wondered at such a meaningless and fruitless life; seems like people usually have one. Then, amidst the squalor and need, I detangled all my problems and overcame what I could.

Part of that success was moving down and rebuilding my bankroll and my poker game, but just it doesn’t feel the same this time. I don’t sense good things from this particular act of realism and humility. Before my session, I remember prophetically that the lower you go, the personalities are the worse: I’m apprehensive of this because my demotion is just feeling, well, bad. After all, one reason I dodge the lucrative and outsized one-three at the Wynn is in part because I don’t want to share the felt with certain people. I’m primarily thinking of Coach, the worst person in all of poker, yet Big Lube turns the stomach as well. If I were an anorexic, I know exactly when and where to play.

That you can never bend deep enough is likely the problem, I suspect superstitiously. I head back to the WSOP games. It takes nearly an hour to get a seat, not because they are so precious, but because of the disorganization at the kiosk. They’ve got enough computer power to send Martin Kahbrel, Phil Hellmuth, and Mike Matusow on a moon expedition, but are instead reduced to taking names on a torn-up sheet of paper. My name appears on the screen then disappears then reappears. I walk through imposter Paris to relieve my boredom. I visit the lowball tournament, where the life winners are dumping time and money. Scott Seiver jumps up and laughs. Erik Seidel out concentrates various opponents. Some guy with perfect hair and scarf covers his mouth. It’s the MTT life, but I’m closer to the EBT life.

I am eventually given my seat and my porridge. During the first two hands, a bewildered dealer requires my help to understand the action. The spectacled player on my right raises a limp and I decide to skip a normal light three-bet. I’m not sure what would have happened but he turns out to be rather light himself. Point taken, so on the fourth hand I do three-bet him with the four-three of clubs and take it all down. That’s when it starts.

“Are you going to tip?”

Someone is talking to me. I don’t usually tip for preflop action.

It’s a white haired, respectable looking fellow. I ask him if he is joking.

“I’m not,” he says flatly. “So are you going to tip?”

“Not for preflop action.”

“You’re a cheap skate.” A gloriously boomer word, it occurs to me later. Skate as in slipping over responsibility?

Here we go. The incompetent dealer grins and thanks this player for sticking up for him. No one says the obvious: we don’t tip much for preflop hands in live poker culture. What a useless bunch.

The two of us exchange a few more increasingly heated words. He soon takes an even more absurd tack, supposing that I am “one of those people who don’t tip in restaurants.”

I use a profane word in telling him to shut up. He shakes his head and tells me I can’t do that here.

Welcome back to one-three.

I don’t know if I can do it, though. The rake, the players, the dealers… ugh. I’m reminded of this small battle at my favorite cafe. I tip generously, of course, but I have the feeling I am doing it unnecessarily, because I don’t get what I want. At least half the time my order is wrong. The tip is supposed to encourage and reward good service, but I think it also sends a different message: I’m a whale, treat me badly. Which they do on a regular basis.

I remember my angry step-father, who was constantly aggrieved. He would return anything that wasn’t perfect, even food from the grocery store. If a product dissatisfied him, he would type in ALL CAPS a violent letter to customer service, DEMANDING whatever restitution he could get his sense of entitlement around. It was impressive, but I hated the pure disagreeableness of it. I hated how everything was a fight for some people.

So, I’m a tipper but I guess I don’t stand up for myself enough. Do I need to call people out, demand cheapskates subsidize the incompetent? “He makes minimum wage,” the outraged player reminds me. He repeats the phrase again, as if the words were especially meaningful and poisonous. “Minimum wage!”

Economics is not for everyone.

Neither the game nor the argument will last. My tormentor has hidden himself in headphones rather than aggravate me; I can see he is probably a reasonable person in less stressful scenarios. In our final hand, I choose not to bet into him, in position with top pair in a three-bet pot. It’s an interesting spot because what I fear is he is checking too many strong hands. However, this is somewhat foolish. He is checking strong hands but also not cbetting his bluffs and weaker hands like tens and jacks. It’s a subtle thing, but by playing in flow and respecting his range too much, I’m doing it wrong. Since I run badly, he fills on the turn. I lose what little profit one can expect to grind out at even a soft one-three.

This is not working.

As I rack up, the tip scolder apologizes for “lighting me up.” I’m not sure how I feel about this description of what happened, so I can’t even say I accepted his apology. However, he does sincerely explain himself. His wife is a dealer, and she is frustrated by the tips. I can understand that, but as with the baristas, you may or may not be tipped for your competence when incompetence is also supposed to be rewarded. We can only do so much, we players, within the conventions of the game and within the rake and within the risk reward of the buy-in. Just as I will not likely make enough money at a short-stacked one-three game, our dealers may not either.

Which is why, after an hour and a half of play, I move back to two-five. I guess this is just my fate and my people. I see greasy-haired woman I feel like I’ve played in some sweaty game in Portland. I see the angler from Day Three. And guess what?

Straddles’ on.

Parking Addendum. It occurred to me, even before I returned to the Horseshoe/Paris WSOP mash-up, that my earlier set of deductions about the parking situation needed refinement. Reason being that there are three, not one, lanes, and so three, not one, readers. In other words, each reader could have a different problem or sensitivity.

For Day Two, I had used the middle lane to exit. This time I used the first lane… and it worked. However, before we start celebrating our discovery, it must be noted that the intercom had been turned on by a previous exiting party, meaning that it is possible my card did not work so much as a staff member let me through. That said, I believe it was the card because this time, the “processing” notice did come up after I inserted my rewards card repeatedly and sensually. The gate spreads open; I think I got it off this time.

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