By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Sept. 20, 2022
I walked around 6.2 miles the morning of Friday, Sept. 16. After showering and dressing, I puttered around the house for a while. Around 1 in the afternoon, having loaded some things into my car, I drove down to Princeton and parked close to Nassau Avenue. I wandered along the north end of the Nassau commercial district and went a block or two past it. Then I reversed course and stepped into the foyer of a restaurant called Amazing Thai, which had a large (and at that time empty) outdoor seating area.
I enjoyed a quiet lunch on a mild, sunny mid-September afternoon. Then I strolled south for a while, going one long block past where I’d parked. Upon turning back toward my car, I made a quick stop at an ATM. Back at my car, I put my food in the soft-sided cooler I’d brought, arranged my phone and other items to my satisfaction, and began driving toward the casino I generally call Philadelphia Live.
Right around 5 p.m., I sat down in seat eight at table 10, which was hosting a $1-$3 no limit Texas holdem game. I bought in for $300.
The player to my right was a large balding white man. He got stacked twice in two of the first three or so hands I witnessed at the table and grumbled about it. The first time, the player in seat three hit a queen-high straight with ace-10 off-suit. I believe my neighbor had a pair of pocket kings here. Shortly afterward, the man to my left, occupying seat nine, made kings full of sevens with a hand of king-nine.
Seat nine was a person I’ll call Beau, a thin older white man wearing a black baseball hat with a green brim that featured a four-leaf clover on its front. He had a lot of green $25 chips and a bad sniffle. Not long after I arrived, he briefly departed the table. When he came back, he was wearing a surgical mask, perhaps inspired by me. (For health and safety reasons, ever since March 15, 2020, I’ve always masked while playing poker in person.)
The first hand I played occurred when I was in the big blind. We went six (!) ways to the flop when Beau straddled, which he habitually did.
Everyone checked the flop. Seat seven bet $13 on the turn. I raised to $38 with pocket kings. My three-bet was called by the player in seat one, a large young black woman who seemed to be playing a game on her phone for most of her time at the table. Just the two of us went to the river, when I called her $30 bet. It turned out her 8-7 had turned a 10-high straight.
This was a terribly conducted hand on my part. I played far too passively. Upon seeing kings in the hold before the flop, I should have raised, probably to around $35. That likely would have folded out seat one’s 8-7 as well as some other chaff. I felt intimidated and overwhelmed, however, and went with the passive play. As you can see, that turned out badly for me. That left me the short stack.
Not long afterward, I folded pocket deuces and pocket fives to preflop raises. No one else called those raises.
Around 40 minutes after my arrival at the table, Beau in seat nine asked the server for a double shot of Jameson. “Make it as long as you can,” he told her. ”I gotta get rid of this cold.” Beau, who seemed to have flown in from somewhere else, had started sneezing.
I unsuccessfully searched for my bottle of hand sanitizer. Hours later, I discovered that I had stashed it in a pocket other than where I customarily keep it.
While taking notes, I dropped my pen on the carpet. “Gross,” I muttered to myself as I bent to retrieve it.
Some seven minutes after Beau placed his order, the waitress returned with his whiskey. “Wonderful, wonderful pour indeed,” he said.
Moments later, the disgruntled man to my right was stacked for the third time. He had 10-four in the hold and flopped two pairs. But his hand was counterfeited when the turn and river put kings on the board. That gave the man in seat three kings to go along with his pocket jacks, a superior hand to seat seven’s kings and 10s.
“I gotta go,” my right-hand neighbor said. Moments later, he was a memory.
Seat three, incidentally, was the same man who hit a straight flush against me when I last visited Philly Live on Aug. 7. He spent part of his time this evening reading Card Player, a complimentary magazine that is frequently found in poker rooms but which, in my limited experience, people tend not to read while participating in a poker game.
Shortly afterward, a masseuse came by with a box of tissues for Beau, whom she’d seen sneezing. He thanked her and tipped her a maroon $5 tip. When she offered to bring him hand sanitizer, he told her that he’d been using it, although I had seen absolutely no sign of this.
Beau had started to lower his mask.
By 6 p.m., many of the players had changed. Beau was still there, along with the woman in seat one. I’d gone to the flop twice (twice!), with pocket kings and with K♥️-10♥️. I’d gone to showdown once, with kings. I’d won exactly zero pots.
A plain green tea arrived for me at 11 minutes after the hour. The floor around Beau’s seat was littered with used tissues.
Soon afterward, I decided to document every single hand I received for the next little while in order to prove what lousy cards I was getting. Here they are, preceded by my position in the order of play and the time:
• Cutoff, 6:13 p.m.: 7♦️3♥️. I folded.
• Hijack, 6:15 p.m.: J♠️3♠️. I folded to a $15 raise from initial position 1.
• Straddle, 6:17 p.m.: K♥️4♦️. Several players called my straddle. I checked it. We got a flop of 5♥️8♠️5♠️, which everyone checked. I folded to a turn bet of $20 when my hand continued to fail to connect with the board.
• Big blind, 6:19 p.m.: A♠️10♠️. I called a raise of $20 from the button but folded to Beau’s three-bet to $90.
• Small blind, 6:23 p.m.: 7♦️5♠️. I folded to a raise of $15.
I took a short bathroom break at that time. Immediately afterward, I got involved in some action.
The new player in seat seven called a raise of what I believe was $15. I three-bet to $28 from initial position 3. Action folded to seat seven, who had called from initial position 2 and also called my re-raise.
The flop was all numbers — that is, two through 10. I shoved all-in for $125 with A♥️J♦️. Seat seven folded, and I collected my first pot at 6:28 p.m., about an hour and a half after arriving.
Beau had been sneezing into the top left corner of his jacket and then wiping his nose with this same part of his jacket. Surely this was 100 percent sanitary!
At 6:45 p.m., Beau was served another whiskey. He thanked the server, a younger woman, saying, “You’re the best nurse I ever had.” Then he mumbled, half to himself: “I probably shouldn’t say that. It’s not politically correct.” The dealer, a middle-aged woman, chuckled along.
Both my recollection of the very next hand and my notes are incomplete: I don’t know my hold cards here, but I think I had ace-queen or ace-jack off-suit.
After the deal, seat four raised to $15 from opening position. Action folded to me. I three-bet to $33 and got called. The flop was all low. I shoved for perhaps $175 and was called. The runout did not help me beat a set of threes.
And just like that, I’d lost all my chips and the $300 buy-in they represented.
MEMwrites 
Leave a comment