Trip report: Twin River Casino, Lincoln, RI, 2-20-16

What's that you say? Twin River's poker room has been open for months, and you're only now getting around to going there?

Well, no. Strictly speaking, no. In fact, not-so-very-strictly speaking, no. I have been there three times now. But the first two times were pretty uneventful and I had my hands full with getting my poker legs underneath me and trying the truly awful chipotle sauce at Johnny Rocket's. Both times I walked out within $10 of my buy-in, once up, once down. Josie was good enough to accompany me the first time, and Josie and FDD Spuds were both there for the second time.

For what it's worth, Josie professes a dislike of the place, based on (she says) the fact that she lost money the first time, and that she got no reception on her phone. I for one am more inclined to believe the latter than the former,  but no matter, no matter. I'm sure there'll be return visits in the future.

The room suffers somewhat from its infancy; the growing pains it is experiencing are far from over, and some of them aren't trivial. Knowledge of the rules of poker and of the house is disquietingly inconsistent and though I have not witnessed it cost anyone any big money, I believe it is a matter of time.

To give only three examples that happened at my table today: Firstly, the dude in seat 3 string-raised. As clear-cut a case of a string raise as it got. When seat 5 and I (seat 6) pointed it out, the dealer got a little shitty and asked us to please refrain from identifying string raises, that it was the responsibility of the dealer to do so. That was met with incredulity among the table, the universal sentiment being that in fact the players should (indeed must) call a string raise when they see it. The player in question withdrew his second stack so it didn't get heated, but later, when the brush was by, this was informally confirmed.

Second, it is a stated rule in this room that cards speak. We had an unidentified flush come up and the dealer kept his trap shut about it. When a player who wasn't in the hand spotted the flush, the dealer immediately said "I was hoping one of you would say something, we're not supposed to." More howls of protest from the table. The dealer started defending his position then almost immediately backtracked - actually lying about having said that dealers weren't supposed to call hands that players themselves didn't spot.

Thirdly, in a three-way hand, the river was checked down all around. The last guy to act, instead of saying the word "check," tabled his cards face-up announcing what he had, an act all of us have performed a thousand times. The dealer says "You can't do that. You have to say 'check.'

FLOOR!

The brush comes over and sure enough, he looks at the dealer like he had baby shit in his hair and informs him that yes, the last bettor on the river can turn up his cards without word or gesture if the play has been checked to him.

These are simple things, remedial things. I'm sure time will heal them, but until that happens a visitor to the Twin River poker room should prepare himself for minor disappointments like these.

Anyway, to my play...

For most of the day, I had about $500 in front of me. One can start with $300, and within the first half-hour I was down $200, most of the damage wrought by my flush losing to quads. I re-upped another deuce and quickly got back to even, but didn't really move off $500 for several hours.

Then I lost a ton of money when my AK lost to KK, and things were looking a little grim for The Kid. I was stuck around $300 and was faced with the conundrum we dread: do I get up from the table, lick my wounds, and live to fight another day, or do I use the $200 I have left to recoup some of my losses and my dignity?

I decided that surrender was for the weak and for the French, and I am neither of those things. Luckily, right about then the table got a new player to seat 7, the seat at my left elbow. I'm going to call him Tony "Bro" Gellmuth, because he deftly combined the annoying bravado of Tony G with the condescending poker knowledge of Phil Hellmuth - and he called everyone "Bro." When he sat down he claimed to have been up for 20 straight hours and I believed him. And whatever he was taking to stay awake was fucking working. He could have played lead violin at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, been a world-renowned brain surgeon, and designed the most graceful and beautiful buildings in skylines all around the world, and still his greatest gift would be flapping his goddamn gums. Talk talk talk talk talk, that's all he did. He talked about his hand. He talked about his strategy for playing his hand. He talked about why other people were such poor players. He talked about why he was such a good one. He never, ever stopped, except to get up and have a smoke.

During one of these times I parodied his little act to a player I was in a hand with. During the hand I asked "What you got, bro? What you got, bro?" - which was the subject of much mirth from the table. We spent the next two full hands talking about what an obnoxious asshole this guy was, how he was disrupting the flow of the game, and trying his best to bully everyone else into submission.

So I decide that when he sits back down, I should start in with the needle, and I wouldn't be shouted down by my tablemates.

Sure enough, his first hand back from his most recent smoke break, he keeps up his running commentary about a hand he's in with someone, telling him as the hand is in progress, "if you have a pair you win," to which I replied "If I had a set of earplugs, I'd win," which broke up the table and turned him red for a little while.

From that point on it became his mission to tell the table that I was a bad poker player, and to try to prove it to the world. The first hand that this strategy really cost him was when, holding JQh, I flopped the nut straight. He was betting like a maniac, and I knew I had him since I had the nuts, so I just check-called the flop and the turn, let him do all the damage himself.

When the river came, I bet out $60, I think. He said - he actually said - "I raise. NO! I mean I call!" as if it were a genuine mistake. I looked at the dealer and said something like "tell the naughty boy what he has to do," and the dealer rightly said he needed to make at least a minimum raise. He puts in the extra chips with just token resistance, and flips over his cards out-of-turn to reveal the low straight.  I show my winner and drag a giant pot, and now I'm within sniffing distance of even.

More importantly, Tony "Bro" Gellmuth loses his fucking mind.

"You had the nuts and you just check-called your way through that hand?" he asked incredulously. "What kind of strategy is that?"

Now, I know that questions of that nature are best left unanswered. Perhaps it was the Imp of the Perverse that made me answer it. Maybe I just knew that it would tilt him like an old pinball machine.

"A damn good one, with a maniac like you on my left," I answer to the laughs and hoots of the rest of the table - who, remember, hated this guy's guts. "You were betting right into me, and I was letting you. Nicely done, by the way - thanks."

"Oh, you're going to discuss poker strategy with ME? A guy who check-calls the nuts wants to discuss strategy with me?"

"No, I really don't," I said, letting a little anger flash in my eyes. "I could live my entire life quite happily never discussing poker with you, ever."

A few more laughs from the table, and he finally shuts up, if shaking his head and mumbling to himself counts as shutting up.

A few hands later, Mrs. Crafty texts me - she's sick with a cold I gave her, bless her - and asks me when I'm coming home. I couldn't answer her right away because play had already started back up but I knew the sands of time were running out on my afternoon.

I make a decision that the hand that breaks me even will be my last - and I was within perhaps $60 of this goal.

I look down at the hand I was in and see A2h in cutoff +1 or so. I make a raise to $7 and Tony "Bro" Gellmuth calls me.

Flop comes a deuce and two hearts - and I decide this is my Alamo. Here will I make my stand, to succeed or fail, and may the Almighty favor my undertaking*. I throw $20 in the pot, which has the net effect of isolating me with T "B" G.

Turn comes a blank. I c-bet $30 or $40 and he calls without thinking too hard.

The river comes my wonderful, beautiful heart. I have the nut flush and there are no pairs on the board. This hand is won.

Check.

"$75," he says, and throws three green chips in the middle.

"Raise to $200," I say, and start cutting chips.

"Call," he says, before I get the chance, and flips over J3h for a smaller flush.

"I have the nuts," I say, and flip over my cards, and he yells "GOD DAMMIT!" and puts his head down in his arms on the table - that is, until the dealer tells him to give me another $125. And now I'm up around $200 and I decide that before I leave I will administer the needle one final time, which should give you an idea of to what extent this fucking doofus deserved it.

"Well boys," I say, "Reckon I'll head home - my wife needs dinner." I look at Tony "Bro" Gellmuth one last time. "I was hungry, but after eating your soul I just can't have another bite."

He scowls, and I walk away from the table feeling like I just won a million dollars.

Anyway, that's my trip report. Hope you enjoyed it. Go see a doctor if you haven't recently.

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*"Annuit coeptis," a phrase you'll find on the back of the dollar bill, translates to "He [god] favors our undertaking."