My New Hero

Okay, so I was getting a little stir crazy and decided to make a little casino trip yesterday. I heard through the grapevine that the bad beat jackpot was up around 70k at Greektown, so I figured I'd hang out, play in a typical loose-passive hold'em game, and try to catch lightning in a bottle. As usual, my trip did nothing to disappoint.

I left at like 330 in an effort to beat the 5pm rush, but that plan went down the drain when I got to 9mile. For the next two hours, I moved at an average speed of 1 MPH, +/- .05MPH. It was miserable. When I finally got to the bottleneck, I saw that they had the freeway shut down between 7 mile and 6 mile, and were forcing people off. So I get off at 7 mile, drive next to the expressway, and get back on a mile later.

As I get on, I notice that there's a LOT of traffic for an expressway that's shut down... Well, it turns out that mine was one of the last cars rerouted. In the few minutes I was off the expressway, the Department of Transportation trucks that were blocking off the road (you know the ones that have those arrows that light up in the back?) just up and left, reopening the road.

So what this boils down to is, if I'd left my house 2 hours and fifteen minutes later, I likely would have arrived at the casino about fifteen minuts after I actually did. Wonderful. Now I'm incredibly angry.

So when I show up to the casino, I'm in a pretty crappy mood. I just spent 2 of the last 3 hours sitting in my car listening to idiots talk about sports on AM radio, powerless to make it stop. So I walk upstairs and up to the security guard that checks IDs and shit.

Wang: "Howdy." (slips ID out of wallet, hands it to guard)

Guard: (eyes Wang, eyes ID, eyes Wang, raises eyebrows) "This ain't you, man."

Wang: "What? Yeah it is." (points at own face) "That's me." (points at face harder) "This is me."

Guard: "Naw, man, that ain't even look like you."

Wang: (still pointing at face) "I have a beard."

Guard: (points at ID) "Man, you ain't got a beard."

Wang: "No, now. Now I have a beard. So does he." (points at ID)


Anyway, after a few minutes I convinced him it was me by giving him like 10 other pieces of ID that I had in my wallet, none of which had a picture of me with a beard, but apparently stealing another man's entire wallet impressed the guard much more than just his license.

After a few minutes I sat at a 3/6 table and was shocked- SHOCKED- at the quality of play. One of the first few hands I played was against a complete unknown. He was 100 lbs overweight, had a few teeth sticking out, yellowed and hillbilly style, and was an otherwise nice guy.

A few limps to me in MP somehwere. I raise with KQo. Hillbilly calls in the BB and we see a flop 5 handed (I think).

Flop (10sb) Q 7 3 rainbow

Checked to me, I bet, Hillbilly and some other crappy players call.

Turn (7ish? BB?) 3 (putting a flush draw up that I have no piece of)

Checked to me, I bet, Hillbilly calls, and we're headsup

River (9BB) A (no draw gets there)

Hillbilly checks, I bet, Hillbilly raises...


What the fuck? I hadn't really seen this guy play a hand after the flop yet. I'm really really fucking confused. Against a decent player I call instantly, and against some players I 3-bet. A super predictable/bad player would probably lead the river if he somehow took the lead, and I would have heard from him before now if he had a 3...

So, unable to figure out what the FUCK is going on, I call. To my surprise Hillbilly nods, and tables Q9s, and we chop. "Thought I'd take a shot you could lay it down. Don't figure I get 3-bet there all that often." Wow. That's a relatively sophisticated play for a live 3/6 game. He figures the river A counterfeited my kicker, so he's either raising for value if I'm betting a hand like JJ/TT the entire way, or taking a free shot at picking up the rest of the pot if I lay it down. Then he offered me a Basic Light 100. Soft pack.

I declined.

The entire session was surreal. I don't know how many times people put in raises on the turn with decent hands + small draws for a free showdown. I got check/raised with air. I saw two players, both of whom looked like Mike Ditka with Down's Syndrome, get 3 bets each in on a double paired river with A-hi. I got called down with Ace hi twice, and got lucky to win one when my busted draw caught a small piece on the river. It was crazy.

Then I moved to another table...

If anyone's ever played at Greektown with an regularity, he should be familiar with an Albanian man named George. George is probably 50ish, with a paunch and a mustache, and the funniest/meanest man I've ever met. George does whatever he wants, and says whatever he wants. I moved to his table when mine broke, and George was off wandering somewhere else. It was his BB, and he obviously wanted to play, so somebody put his BB in for him as he was walking back...

George: "Who fucking touch my chips!" (points to guy next to him, who did not touch his chips) "You fucking touch my chips?!"

Without waiting for an answer, George just knocks the man's stack of ~200 chips over. Just hammers them to the felt.

George: "You touch my chips! I touch your chips, you fuck!"

And everybody laughs. A few orbits later, George is on the phone UTG, and isn't acting on his hand. Sleepy- a 3/6 bad beat regular, so named for his Tracy McGrady-like droopy-eyedness- gets frustrated when George won't respond to the dealer's call to act on his hand, reaches across, and mucks George's cards. George finishes his phone call in a few seconds, then...

George: "Oh fuck you dick sucker! You touch my cards, I touch you cards. Dealer can do it, but not you, Sleepy fuck!" During this mini-rant, George reaches across the table, grabs Sleepy's cards, and throws them into the muck. And everybody laughs.

Throughout the course of the night, George said the following things:

To me: "Oh, you fucking fat Jewish fuck. Your ass is mine, you faggot Jewfuck."

To overweight dealer: "Oh, shut the fuck up you fatfucker. Get off your ass, lose some fucking weight, fuck."

To Sleepy: "Mumble Mumble? Get that dick out you mouth, mumble!"

To another player, who drew out on the river and gloated: "Oh, you try that again! You say something else. You think I can't have you fucking killed? Why do you think I can do whatever I want? Say it twice, you don't say it 3 times."


This man was just a maniac. And he insulted everybody all night. And, for some reason, everyone just laughed (except Sleepy, who got a little pissed). The dealers put up with it, the floor didn't give a fuck; nobody cared. It's really hard to explain, because this man was NOT good natured about it. He'd insult you to your face all night, but somehow it wasn't that offensive. Maybe it was because he was a cartoon character, but it was tough to get mad at him for more than like 10 seconds.

Anyway, George is my new hero.