Captain Slowroll and the World of Tomorrow

Played a session at Planet Hollywood today and made $500. Netted about $2K in the past five days, which makes my February mediocre, but mediocre is an improvement over how my month looked last week.

I was too caught up in the variance, in my bad run of cards, to be much of a writer this month. A couple things I'll mention now.

Played with the most prolific slowroller ever. He was Gutshot Man from my -$1,240 PLO/$2-5 NL session. A better name for him is Captain Slowroll. He loved to make the second nuts, get called, and then shake his head sadly, tap his cards against the felt, say something like, "Damn. You got me. Your 8-high straight is good." Then the other guy, a supernit who raised to $30 preflop and couldn't possibly have an 8-high straight, would flip over something like pocket Aces, and Captain Slowroll would show the 7-high straight and say, "I thought if you called me there you had to have me beat! Wow!"

He bluffed so often, betting almost every hand to the river, that about 75% of the time he said, "Ya got me," the other guy really had caught him bluffing. But 25% of the time Captain Slowroll had made a straight or two pair somewhere along the way.
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Playing at the Tropicana I witnessed the most unprofessional hour-and-a-half of poker dealing I've ever seen at a casino. One dealer told us, "I don't want to be here," and looked at a player like he was an idiot when he explained why he'd pushed all-in. Another dealer failed to see a flush and pushed a big all-in pot to the wrong player. I saw it and wanted the donkey with the backdoor flush to win, but he didn't see his flush either, and I believe in the saying, "One man to a hand," and that it's unethical to point these things out during a hand, so I didn't say anything until after it was over. Of course it was too late by then.

The best, though, was the hand where a player was all-in preflop for about $20 and two other players called. The flop action was bet-and-fold. The dealer, an Asian woman who spoke little English, forgot about the all-in player and placed the flop cards in the muck and pushed the flop bettor the pot. The all-in player complained and showed AT while the flop bettor showed 99, which was the best hand on the pre-existing flop. The dealer, realizing her error, grabbed five apparently random cards out of the muck and turned them faceup. No burning, no turning. Re-bet says he believes she found the correct three cards for the flop, but I thought one of the boardcards was one of my mucked holecards. "Pocket nine good," she said, announcing the winning hand after the five "boardcards" were out. The guy with AT seemed kind of at a loss and walked away. To this day all I have to do is say, "Pocket nine good," and Re-bet just loses it.