Leona, Part 2
And we pick up right where we left off in part 1 (here). And since this is a serious poker blog, we’ll start with some poker.
I raised to $10 with Aces again, two callers, one of whom was Canada who was under-the-gun. There were two spades on flop, I bet $15, Canada called. I bet $25 on the turn, he called. The river was a third spade and this time Canada bet, but only $35 so I called. He had Ace-King of spades. Interesting to note that he limped in preflop with that, but I lost some chips there.
In the big blind with Ace-3 of diamonds I just checked. The flop was Ace high and two diamonds. I bet $15 and New York called. I bet $25 on the turn when a diamond gave me the nut flush, again New York called. I checked the river, which paired 10’s. I was worried about a boat. New York bet $55. I took some time and decided there was too good a chance that New York was either bluffing or couldn’t beat my flush. I shrugged and called and asked him, “Do you have a boat?” He said, “No, your flush is good,” and just mucked.
Ace-Queen in the big blind, I just checked and four of us saw a flop of Ace-Jack-Jack. I bet $5, Leona made it $15. I called and we were heads up. I checked the turn, she bet $15 again, I called. I checked/called $15 on the river, which was a Queen. She had a weak Ace. The dealer started to divide the pot, as we both had two pair. Wait, what? I had to point out that the river had given me a better two pair.
At one point, when Indiana was stumbling over his words, Leona, asked him, “Are you balls in your throat?”
After she kept going to back to how high her tax bracket was multiple times, and kept proving New York’s point that she, ahem, lacked inner-beauty, Indiana finally asked what she did for a living, and then followed that up by asking if she was a whore. Or he possibly just directly accused her of being a whore. I didn’t hear him say it but afterwards I did hear him confess that that was the word he used.
Leona seemed semi-offended by that, but not really. She went back to talking about her husband, who she made clear, was the income-provider in her household. Indiana immediately regretted the comment and apologized profusely. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Leona said, “Oh it’s ok, it’s fine….I’m not a hooker.” Then said added, “I know you want me to be a hooker, because you want to f*** me. I know that. But I’m not a hooker. You couldn’t afford me if I was a hooker, you couldn’t possibly afford me because I have so much money.”
Then Leona decided they should do a shot together as a gesture of good will, since they had gotten so nasty with each other. They did, but the nastiness between the two of them continued one and off throughout the evening. He admitted that calling her a whore was a terrible thing to say and she said it was no big deal. Yet, they kind of went back to it several more times. It was weird, they kept kissing (figuratively, not literally) and making up and then battling some more. Repeat. Perhaps the alcohol had something to do with it.
At one point, a second woman joined the table. I recognized her as an out-of-town regular. Almost before she could take her coat off as she sat down, she heard something salacious and said, “What have I gotten myself into here?” Canada asked her where she was from and she said, “Sacramento.” Canada replied, “Sacramento? OK, we’re gonna call you ‘Sac.” We all kind of went “Woa” and clearly from the look on the face, the girl didn’t like that name. So from then on, she was referred to by her full name, “Sacramento.”
Canada asked her if Sacramento was in Utah because he was looking for a sister-wife. Then he said, “She’s so quiet, she doesn’t complain…she’s in. F*** the interview process, she’s in.”
She was asked what brought her to Vegas and she said it was her dad’s birthday.
Canada said, “Oh, is he getting it on with your mom?” Everyone laughed (except Sacramento). “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, are they having a nice, romantic evening?” He shut up when Sacramento told him her parents were divorced. But then she added, “I’m just here for the entertainment.”
Sacramento, despite being familiar with a lot of the dealers, kept very quiet and didn’t play many hands. And although he had no trouble keeping everyone else straight, Indiana kept forgetting where Sacramento was from. Even right after hearing Canada call her “Sacramento,” he’d look at her and ask, “Where are you from?” The entire table would answer in unision, “Sacramento!” I swear, one time, he even said to her, “Sacramento, where are you from?”
Sacramento had long, black hair. But for some reason, Indiana decided that she reminded him of that girl from that old movie, “16 Candles.”
“Molly Ringwald?” Sacramento asked? “She has short red hair, I have long dark hair. How do you get Molly Ringwald?” “Well, you seem sweet like her.” And he would often call her “Molly” after that.
More oddly, Canada somehow connected “16 Candles” with the “American Pie” movies. Indiana was aghast. “No, no. That’s completely different. Those are nasty movies. ’16 Candles’ was a nice, sweet movie.” They argued over that for quite some time.
Remember in part 1 I said I was talking notes on my phone, not on my notebook? Well, originally it was just poker notes but after things got crazy I started writing short hand notes about every outrageous thing I could remember being said. And apparently I was sloppy in keeping my phone out of the watchful eye of Canada. He must have seen some of the words I was adding to my notes—you know, like “vagina” and “penis” and “whore”. And he said, to the table, “This guy is texting all this talk, he’s texting it. He’s like a dirty old man, texting all this stuff.” Shit. I covered up my phone but it was too late. Now, if I had been writing these notes in my notebook and he saw, he’d never have been able to read what I had written down. I can barely read them myself the next day.
“Man, he’s texting this. And here I thought you were a Mormon or something.” I laughed at that, and then Sacramento piped in for one of the few times. “Mormon? More like Costanza.”
Seriously? This was now the second time I’d been referred to as “Costanza” at a poker table! See here for the previous time. From then on, I was referred to as “George” or “Costanza” the rest of the night.
At one point Leona suggested that we all do “pussy shots.” “What’s a good pussy shot?” she asked. And Mike Tyson spoke up for the first time. “The best pussy shot is pussy.” That had everyone in hysterics. Mike Tyson had earned his space at the table with that singular comment.
Leona responded to that line by saying, “We should do wet pussies.”
I’m not sure if it was then or later but Canada said, “Can you bring a tampon to this table?” And Leona replied, “Yeah, I could use a tampon. I would like a tampon. I have my period.” A number of us responded with “TMI” to that tidbit.
Then things really got odd. She got into a big hand with New York. New York won and busted her. Don’t worry, she didn’t leave, she re-bought. Anyway, I don’t recall the size of the pot, but it was decent-sized, and New York tipped the female dealer $2. That seemed sufficient to me, it wasn’t a monster pot by any means. And frankly, you see a guy like New York, who obviously is a grinder, you’re surprised when he gives anything more than a buck.
But Leona didn’t think it was enough. “That’s all you’re gonna give her? I would give her ten bucks.” New York responded, “Well good for you,” but made no effort to tip the dealer any more.
I was thinking that ten bucks was way more than that pot deserved. It wasn’t even a five-dollar tip pot as far as I could tell. But then honestly, I hope to one day win a pot big enough where I even consider giving the dealer $10!
Leona didn’t let it go. “Give her more money!” New York was thru talking to her at the moment, so he said nothing. So in addition to the $100 she took out to buy more chips with, she took out a five and several ones from her wallet and passed it over to the dealer. “Here, this is for the tip that he didn’t give you.” The dealer refused to take it and slid the bills back to Leona. “No, I can’t accept that, thank you.” This led to about a five minute scene of the two of them pushing the bills back and forth between them, Leona insisting that she should take it because New York didn’t tip her enough, and the dealer insisting she couldn’t accept it. “No, no, I can’t take it.” Sacramento, in seat 9, was sitting between the two of them, so at one point Leona passed the bills to her and told her to give it to the dealer. Sacramento stacked the bills over by the dealer but the dealer wouldn’t take them. Towards the end of this, a floorman came by to do a fill. By now everyone at the table (except for New York, who was completely silent) was telling the dealer to take the money. Finally the floorman chimed in and told her to take the money, and very reluctantly, she did.
There was a hand where Canada was confused about why he won the pot (too distracted by Leona, I guess). He asked, “Was there a Jack on the board?” Told there was, he said, “Oh I just got jacked off and didn’t know it. Who do I pay? That’s $20 right?”
At one point, after Indiana and Leona had quieted down after their latest tiff, Canada said to Indiana, “You are the funnest guy I’ve played with since I’ve been in Vegas.” And Sacramento, suddenly woke up and delivered this gem. “Do you play with a lot of guys?” That got everyone laughing, and when he stopped laughing, Canada said, “Sacramento comes alive with the line of the night.”
Then Leona won a big hand or two. True to her word, she tipped generously--$10 a pot. But Leona suddenly refused to stack her chips. She just left them in a mess in front of her. New York whispered to the dealer to ask her to stack her chips. The dealer did so very, very gently. Clearly he didn’t want to piss her off in case she won another pot and was still inclined to tip generously. “Not to be a jerk, but could you sort of neaten up your chips?” She agreed and made a 10-second effort to move around her chips but didn’t really do anything.
When the next dealer came in, the shift manager came by and told the dealer to have Leona stack her chips. I dunno if she (the shift manager) did that on her own or if New York had perhaps had gone to her to complain. But by this time Leona must have figured out that it was New York who was asking to have her chips stacked and was not about to do anything he wanted. She said to him, “What’s the big deal? What do you care?” I have to admit, this is so basic and so necessary that it pissed me off. I didn’t say anything, but I decided that, if she made a bet while I still had cards, when the action was on me I would say, “I need to know how much she is playing, so can you please have her stack her chips.” You know, just hold up the game for five minutes. I mean….I would have done this even if there was no chance I would call the bet. In fact, if I knew I wasn’t going to call, it would have been better. Just wait to get a count, and then fold to her $10 bet. Yeah, I knew she would have been really pissed at that, but she deserved it. But for the past hour I had been completely card dead, and that didn’t really change and thus I never had the opportunity.
Towards the end another new player came to the table, heard some of the laughing and bickering as he sat down and asked what he was getting into, just as Sacramento had earlier. Indiana told him, “Oh it’s wild. We’ve been putting our equipment on the table to compare.”
Leona then interjected, “My dick is bigger than yours.” She was talking to Indiana.
Indiana seemed genuinely stunned. “I was talking about our tax brackets and our vehicles, not that.”
Leona repeated, “Well, my dick is bigger than yours.”
Indiana was not laughing, and he basically told her that was a terrible thing to say.
Leona said, “You wanna call the floor? My dick is bigger than yours…and I only have a clit.”
Indiana indicated that this was out of line.
“My dick is bigger than yours even tho I don’t have one. It’s not my problem my dick is bigger than yours…you can’t get mad about that.”
Indiana again said that was out of line.
Leona said, “What’s the big deal? It’s like saying, that girl’s boobs are bigger than mine.”
With that, she pointed to Sacramento, who was a bit embarrassed. How can I delicately put this? Sacramento is built more like Keira Knightley than Kate Upton. She immediately used her arms to cover up her chest and said, “It’s not true.”
Then she added, “How did I get in this? I was just sitting here.”
Indiana said that it wasn’t like that. And Leona replied, “It is definitely like that.” Indiana repeated, “It’s nothing like that.”
Leona asked why not.
“Because she doesn’t have a penis?” Yes, he said it as a question, not a statement.
Leona said, “Well, we have boobs. And I have boobs.”
Indiana just shook his head.
Leona said one more time, “It’s not my fault my dick’s bigger than yours.”
The table actually got somewhat quiet after that.
Last bit of poker. I limped in with Ace-5 of diamonds. There were a bunch of us seeing the flop, which was Jack-2-3. The two smaller cards were both diamonds, so I had all kinds of draws. Leona bet $25, which seemed like an overbet, and I called, we were heads up. A big diamond on the turn gave me the flush, and I checked hoping to check raise. Sure enough, she bet $50 and I made it $100. She called. I just checked the river, because it paired the three. She bet $20, which was weird. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that the small bet was her attempt to entice me into raising again and that she had a boat. Since it wasn’t blocking bet (I had already checked), what could it mean? Distracted by all the crazy conversation that was going on around me, I just called. She showed Ace-2. And she seemed upset with me. “I had that from the beginning. And you called.” I know I should say nothing under those circumstances but since we’d already discussed her vagina—and I had heard her brag about how big her dick was, too—I reminded her that I had a big draw on the flop.
I stayed about a half hour longer than I ordinarily would have just to see if I could get more material. I was up over $200 at one point but then down some of that. I lost some chips calling a fairly big raise from New York with pocket Queens. I folded to his big flop bet when an Ace hit.
So now I was one hand away from the final hand for me, UTG+1. I got pocket Queens again. Canada had straddled so I made it $15. Three players called. I don’t remember the board, but my Queens were an overpair. I bet $50 and one guy called. It was a guy from Australia, who had replaced the guy from Brazil. All I can tell you is the board got scarier and scarier as the cards fell and I checked both the turn and the river, and I didn’t mind when Aussie didn’t bet. I showed my Queens and he mucked. I was pretty happy about that win, it put me up exactly $200. I folded one more garbage hand and then called it a night.
Canada said, “Leaving so soon?” I said yeah, it was past my bedtime (my standard line). Then I said, “Plus, no one’s said anything funny for like 20-minutes.”
Getting paid $200 for a two-part blog post was a good night indeed. Leona had indicated that she liked this poker room, and as I said, I saw her playing there a few nights later. So there’s a decent chance I’ll run into again and perhaps be able to figure out whether her nasty streak was just an act or if it comes naturally to her.
