Hot Hand at Harrah's

On Monday I spent a few hours playing poker at the Imperial Palace.

It was one of the strangest sessions of the winter. I was seated in the #1 seat, right at the dealer's left and next to one of the biggest @#*&%$ jerks I've encountered at a poker table. He was a 20-something uber-dude who thought he was the greatest poker player since Phil Ivey. He constantly complained about his hands and how he should have won each hand.

The jerk claimed to have been playing for 17 hours straight, living on Red Bull and Vodka. He shouted loudly at other players, sparking near fights. Tensions were running higher than usual and twice the poker room mgr. came over and warned he and others about their language and behavior. Eventually this guy, who was from Bloomfield Hills, cashed out and the game settled down.

I took all the money from some Asian kid from Houston and that enabled me to walk with a slight profit of $26. That covered the cost of dinner - a $10 Papa John's pizza!!

Tuesday I drove down to the Strip, parked at Bill's Gambling Hall and walked down to Harrah's to play. It's been weeks since I played there and at 10 a.m. there was no $1-2 game going. But I was the fifth player to show up and a game got started. Within 30 minutes there were 10 of us at the table.

I had one big hand. Looking down at my cards I saw A-J of Hearts and raised the $2 blind to $7, getting 3 callers. The flop came Q-7-2- ALL HEARTS. I flopped the highest possible (or Nut) flush. I bet $10 and got only one caller. The turn was Ace of spades. I bet $20 and my lone opponent raised to $40. I just called, not wanting to scare him away. The river was a J of clubs.

There was no way he had a full house and now I just needed to decide how much I could bet to have him call. He had about $60 left, so I bet $40 and he didn't hesitate much when he said "ALL-In" shoving his chips into the pot. I quickly called and flopped my A-J flush. He showed his A-Q of diamonds. He had two pair and went to his wallet to rebuy as the dealer pushed the pot my way.

Largely because of that pot, I was able to post a profit of $130 for the day. I left the table about 1:30 and walked to Bally's - partly for exercise and partly to have a chicken salad sandwich (comped of course) for lunch.

Prior to hitting the snack bar, I went to Ballys poker room to pick up a magazine to read. One of the dealer's spotted me and shouted out "Al, sit down we've got a game starting." No thanks, I'm just getting some reading material to have lunch at Nosh. He asked me to stop by after lunch and I said maybe, knowing full well that I was heading home with my profit for the day...

While I was on the Strip, Helen was on the phone with grandson Michael, doing some sewing and just resting. I made us a dinner of Sante Fe chicken (thanks Weight watchers). It's pretty cool here in Vegas today with a low in the mid 20s and a high today in the mid 40s. But by the weekend it'll be back into the 60s. No matter what the temp, the sun seems to always shine.

And today our adventure continues...