Vignette from Venetian

The title is deliberately misleading but my fondness for both Middle French and alliteration leaves me no alternative. So kindly replace Venetian with Bellagio if you have reached this far.

I am in the 1 seat and am heads-up in a hand with the 8 seat, who bets $100 on the turn into a $150 pot. After some deliberation, I fold by flicking my cards towards the center of the table but they overshoot and land in front of the 5 seat. For some unexplained reason, the latter took this as an opportunity to openly and unabashedly peek at my cards. Some players half-jokingly berated him but he made nothing of it. I chose to ignore the whole incident.

Is that all there is?

Bellagio 2-5 NLHE, Thursday 8:30pm. The room is crowded as usual as I take my seat on Table 32. After about 3 orbits I lose my stack when my pocket queens are no match for a flopped set of jacks. I remain relatively calm and rebuy. I steadily rebuild my stack when I lose a huge pot on the river to a 2-outer. Again I am pleased with the ensuing lack of pain, self-pity and morbid thoughts. Numbness? Immunization?

Joe, the fastest dealer in town, provides for comic relief as I ready myself to quit for the night. I am down a buy-in but consider it a very good session.

Elements of Poker - Tommy Angelo

"My bankroll is the amount of money I would spend or lose before I got a job. It is calculated by adding my net worth to whatever I can borrow." - Tommy Angelo

I have just finished reading Tommy Angelo's Elements of Poker. I highly recommend this work, even though by doing so I reluctantly give up my advantage of book reciprocality.

This is a book I will re-read, and re-re-read, on a monthly basis. It contains everything I need.

The coldest seat in Vegas

Last week I had the misfortune of playing on Table 36, Seat 6 at the Bellagio. It is located directly under an air conditioning vent and is about 40 degrees cooler than any other spot in the room. After about an hour, I started shivering uncontrollably and had to be air evacuated to UMC suffering from severe exposure and frostbite, the 3 of diamonds still stuck frozen to my right index finger.