stevesbets

I just busted out of the 2008 World Series main event. I was up to 100k in chips at one point (5x starting stack) which was pretty good, but after that not a single hand went my way and I experienced a slow death over the next 6 hours or so. After busting, I headed for a cab to the Palms where I am staying.

Now just to preface this story for people that aren’t poker players, everyone in Vegas knows that the WSOP is going on at the RIO, and when someone walks out dressed head to toe in poker gear and sunglasses, pretty much every cab driver knows that he just busted from the 10k tournament.  Usually after losing something like that, the last thing someone wants to hear is small stakes gambling stories. With that in mind, the cab driver says, “Oh man, they gotcha huh, was it fast or slow” I responded with some joke and he was silent for a little while, then went on the following diatribe with a totally flat, slowish sounding affect. The only things I said the whole time were comments like, “nice” or “yeah”. The parenthetical comments are my comments to the reader, not part of his quote.

“I turned 20 dollars into 200 dollars at blackjack yesterday, it was awesome. The thing is, blackjack is a simple game but most people play it terrible anyway. My thing is, I wait for the dealers to bust. See most people don’t know, they have to hit up until 16 and can only stand on 17 or above. Like, if I have 12 and the dealer has 16 (note here that you can never know if the dealer has 16 when you are making your decisions, I assumed he meant 6) there’s like at least a 50 50 chance he’ll bust, I mean he needs an ace…2…3 wait no…2…3…4… no ace…5….he needs like a 2-5 to not bust and that would pretty much be a miracle card. So anyway my friend yell at me, how can u stay on 12, only a ten can bust you! And I say, dude, you have to let them bust. I mean like if if I have a 12 and they have an 18, I’ll probably hit (once again you can’t know they have an 18, I assume he means an 8, if you know they have 18 and you don’t hit on 12 that would be kinda bad play). So anyway, I know what I’m doing, then this one hand, I get 11 vs a 10, I decide to just hit because I”m not feeling the double and I pull 21, then the very next hand I get 11 vs a 10 again, this time I decide to double and i get 13. I guess those are just the kind of things us gamblers have to live with. You’re a poker player man, poker players love my blackjack stories (I was trying so hard not to laugh at this moment) I always bring a big smile to their faces, I guess because they are really into gambling.”

At this point we arrive at the destination. If you didn’t think this was funny let me know, maybe it was one of those had to be there things, but as I got out of the cab I broke out laughing, the valet guy was very confused.

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