Aruba is A-OK-ah
There is little crime on the island of Aruba. Sure, an occasional white girl vacationing from Alabama turns up missing every now and then, but, according to the locals, that is a rarity. The riskiest thing that I encountered during my latest Poker Vacation was the occasional stray dog or pack of loose farm animals that would wander carelessly into the road as I sped around a sharp curve in my Mitsubishi Gallant--drunk on victory, swilling Balashi (the island brew), smoking a Camel, and bobbing along with another Bob Marley medley on the radio. Apparently the animals, having been raised in the balmy bliss of a Caribbean island, really couldn't care less if that car speeding down the road resulted in their death. "Fuck it," I imagined them bleating as they pointed their heads and raised their chins towards the oncoming vehicle's bumper, "it's been a good life."
And why would there be crime in Aruba? Anyone with a few dollars in their pocket and a vague notion of poker strategy could wander into one of the few poker rooms on the island, plunk down in a seat, and let wealthy locals and wealthy suramericanos and bored americans throw money at them. "Fuck it," they would call out in their native tongue as they pushed calling chips into the pot, "Can you beat queen high?"
Well, it wasn't always quite that easy…and maybe I benefited from my unusual table image. Maybe people just have trouble believing that some young punk american on his 5th scotch who looks like he just turned 21 is actually betting with the winning hand. "Your parents let you go out tonight?" an aging latina asked early during the trip.
It all started off about as well as I could have possibly hoped. I drove over to the Holiday Inn to play in their poorly structured 7:30 tournament. A $10 buy in received 500 chips. Blinds started at 25-50 and increased every 15 minutes. Unlimited rebuys for $25 received 1,000 chips. Despite half of my table busting out and rebuying at least 3 times, I managed to work those 500 chips into 4,500 by the end of the first hour, I opted for the 3,000 chip $30 add-on and made it to the final table (out of 30+ players)…then I made it to heads up with about a 4-1 chip lead…which quickly diminished after my opponent doubled up three times in consecutive 50:50 races. 2nd place still paid $300 for a nice $260 profit to start the trip. Plus it was fun having a 15-20 person crowd watching towards the end of the tournament.
Rather than sitting in at a $2-$2, with a $5 bring in no limit table, I opted instead to play $4-$8 limit. Since no tables were available at the Holiday Inn, I walked over to the Radisson, bought in for $140 and left + $200 a couple of hours later. As I walked back to the holiday inn, fondling the money in my front pocket and feeling the warm breeze, I wondered if this is how the poker pros felt as the poker boom started up 5 years ago. I kept thinking to myself, "This is like Shangri-La" and felt a giddy sense of pride akin to what it must feel like to rob a bank. I was already up $500 and I did some quick math and felt that it might be entirely possible to win $300 per night playing $4/$8 limit poker. I capped off the night with more $4/$8 at the H.I., profited another $120, and stumbled into my car as the sky turned blue and the sun began its rise.
Rather than giving more play-by-plays, I'll just say that I was up another $700 the next two nights and started setting my goals on coming home with $2,000. The fourth night I ended up down $50 and the fifth I boomed up to a total $2,200 in money won after a no limit game switched to pot limit omaha on my last night.
Fun at the tables:
On average, the people that I played against were split evenly between american tourists and locals/south americans.
There was an older local woman sitting next to me that would play $40 on the $4/$8 table at a time, reaching into her purse and retrieving $40 more when she went busto. She liked showing me her cards during the hands and receiving my sympathy at getting "drawn out" because she couldn't lay down ace high. She would get angry that she would have the best hand before the flop and get beaten. After pouring $400 into the table, her trip aces were beaten out by trip aces with a better kicker. After doling out several dozen sympathetic comments, I finally commented that she "Must have done something really, really bad." Which didn't seem to entertain her as much as another local at the other end of the table who repeated it and laughed so everyone could hear. I left that table up $350.
I pissed off a lot of people winning big pots with hands like 2-3 suited, 3-4 suited, etc. When I say a lot I mean a lot, and when I say pissed off, I mean bitching in the native language to the dealer while gesturing in my direction.
At the Radisson I was having a tough go for several hours, drinking heavily, and never getting up much above even. I finally hit crazy straights with 7-9 and 3-5 and got up $50 before they broke up our table. I moved to one of the other two 4/8 tables and was told by the room manager to go to the other table "to balance them out". As I sat down at the new table I commented that, "the tables were balanced with me over there." I caught a faint smile from another player and realized that they were moving me, the drunk tourist, to a local-heavy table. I flopped a full house the first hand after sitting down, a set the within the next few hands, and a straight before leaving the table up $300 after about 45 minutes of play. After winning my second big pot (everyone wanted to play hands with the drunk buffoon) a player commented just loud enough for me to hear, "He's doing pretty good for a drunk."
There are no rules against cursing at the tables, which I found to be very liberating.
Most americans there were from the east coast, which made taking their money all the sweeter.
During a no limit session, a massively overweight New Jersey-an came over to our table with $1000+. He straddled for $15 during his first rotation and I raised with an ace+rag preflop to $30, he called and I raised $30 again on the flop since my ace is better than his random hand and he misses the flop 1/3 of the time. He goes all in, which is an obvious tell that he has nothing. I look at the board, look at him, and say, "What a fucking asshole bet. You know there is no doubt in my mind that I have you beat right now." He says "then call". I say "There's no reason to risk my stack on you getting lucky." I shake my head, "What an asshole bet," and lay down my hand. He shows 9-10 off suit to another player to confirm what I already knew, no possible draws, just ten high. I was winning the hand 70% - 30%. "That's about what I figured" I say. Then he starts bitching to the dealer that I called him an asshole and demanding that I be reprimanded. "He can't call me an asshole." "I didn't call you an asshole, I just said it was an asshole bet." The dealer doesn't even respond to him, most likely because this wasn't the first time he heard him complain…plus I tip dealers. Fat man didn't straddle any more after that hand, but he (wearing sunglasses) would try staring me down before any hand was played….even after the hand was being played and I wasn't even involved in the hand…it was the funniest shit. I would be scanning the table and this huge jackass would be staring at me through his prescription sunglasses…so I'd lock eyes and smirk at him until he realized that he had to act first anyway and fold his hand. He left that table way down, and later on in the trip he threw away his $1200 within 30 minutes of sitting down at my table, he bitched at the dealer about some perceived rule violation. He really didn't like me and, for some reason, thought that people were intimidated by sunglasses and body fat…It also seemed like he was trying to impress/frighten with large, ridiculous bets. I'm not sure if I tilted him or if he just really really sucked at poker. Anyway, he was an asshole.
It is funny to encourage a balding canadian construction worker wearing a sleeveless Harley Davidson shirt that reads "Shift Happens" who normally drinks budweiser to start drinking southern comfort on the rocks. It is also funny seeing him hit on the wife of another player at the table before even finishing the first SoCo. It is only moderately funny seeing that player get removed from the casino because he has fallen asleep and is drooling on the felt after his second drink.
More overheard table quotes directed towards me:
"He tips a lot."
"If he's betting, he has it."
"He's a good player, you can tell because he doesn't get mad when he loses."
"If I had two of those drinks I wouldn't be able to do anything"
"It's a good thing this wasn't no-limit, I didn't think you had it." (after raising/reraising every street with AA)
"He doubled up through me and then he triples up and he took my whole stack." Girlfriend asks how. "He keeps catching cards!!" (I outplayed him)
"Somehow I knew you had that" (no way they could have)
The last night I finally got stuck. I lost $200 playing limit because I was bullshitting with a couple from MN. Then I lost $300 playing a rotating game of nl hold em/ pl omaha. I knew that I could win playing Omaha, and the game had switched to only Omaha. I went to the cash machine since I lost all the money that I brought/planned to lose that night, withdrew $300 and returned. By the end of the night I had turned that $300 into $1600 or $1700 and left up for the night $800-$900. And that, my friends is how you leave Aruba +$2200 which, incidentally, is also how you spell P-I-M-P.
There is little crime on the island of Aruba. Sure, an occasional white girl vacationing from Alabama turns up missing every now and then, but, according to the locals, that is a rarity. The riskiest thing that I encountered during my latest Poker Vacation was the occasional stray dog or pack of loose farm animals that would wander carelessly into the road as I sped around a sharp curve in my Mitsubishi Gallant--drunk on victory, swilling Balashi (the island brew), smoking a Camel, and bobbing along with another Bob Marley medley on the radio. Apparently the animals, having been raised in the balmy bliss of a Caribbean island, really couldn't care less if that car speeding down the road resulted in their death. "Fuck it," I imagined them bleating as they pointed their heads and raised their chins towards the oncoming vehicle's bumper, "it's been a good life."
And why would there be crime in Aruba? Anyone with a few dollars in their pocket and a vague notion of poker strategy could wander into one of the few poker rooms on the island, plunk down in a seat, and let wealthy locals and wealthy suramericanos and bored americans throw money at them. "Fuck it," they would call out in their native tongue as they pushed calling chips into the pot, "Can you beat queen high?"
Well, it wasn't always quite that easy…and maybe I benefited from my unusual table image. Maybe people just have trouble believing that some young punk american on his 5th scotch who looks like he just turned 21 is actually betting with the winning hand. "Your parents let you go out tonight?" an aging latina asked early during the trip.
It all started off about as well as I could have possibly hoped. I drove over to the Holiday Inn to play in their poorly structured 7:30 tournament. A $10 buy in received 500 chips. Blinds started at 25-50 and increased every 15 minutes. Unlimited rebuys for $25 received 1,000 chips. Despite half of my table busting out and rebuying at least 3 times, I managed to work those 500 chips into 4,500 by the end of the first hour, I opted for the 3,000 chip $30 add-on and made it to the final table (out of 30+ players)…then I made it to heads up with about a 4-1 chip lead…which quickly diminished after my opponent doubled up three times in consecutive 50:50 races. 2nd place still paid $300 for a nice $260 profit to start the trip. Plus it was fun having a 15-20 person crowd watching towards the end of the tournament.
Rather than sitting in at a $2-$2, with a $5 bring in no limit table, I opted instead to play $4-$8 limit. Since no tables were available at the Holiday Inn, I walked over to the Radisson, bought in for $140 and left + $200 a couple of hours later. As I walked back to the holiday inn, fondling the money in my front pocket and feeling the warm breeze, I wondered if this is how the poker pros felt as the poker boom started up 5 years ago. I kept thinking to myself, "This is like Shangri-La" and felt a giddy sense of pride akin to what it must feel like to rob a bank. I was already up $500 and I did some quick math and felt that it might be entirely possible to win $300 per night playing $4/$8 limit poker. I capped off the night with more $4/$8 at the H.I., profited another $120, and stumbled into my car as the sky turned blue and the sun began its rise.
Rather than giving more play-by-plays, I'll just say that I was up another $700 the next two nights and started setting my goals on coming home with $2,000. The fourth night I ended up down $50 and the fifth I boomed up to a total $2,200 in money won after a no limit game switched to pot limit omaha on my last night.
Fun at the tables:
On average, the people that I played against were split evenly between american tourists and locals/south americans.
There was an older local woman sitting next to me that would play $40 on the $4/$8 table at a time, reaching into her purse and retrieving $40 more when she went busto. She liked showing me her cards during the hands and receiving my sympathy at getting "drawn out" because she couldn't lay down ace high. She would get angry that she would have the best hand before the flop and get beaten. After pouring $400 into the table, her trip aces were beaten out by trip aces with a better kicker. After doling out several dozen sympathetic comments, I finally commented that she "Must have done something really, really bad." Which didn't seem to entertain her as much as another local at the other end of the table who repeated it and laughed so everyone could hear. I left that table up $350.
I pissed off a lot of people winning big pots with hands like 2-3 suited, 3-4 suited, etc. When I say a lot I mean a lot, and when I say pissed off, I mean bitching in the native language to the dealer while gesturing in my direction.
At the Radisson I was having a tough go for several hours, drinking heavily, and never getting up much above even. I finally hit crazy straights with 7-9 and 3-5 and got up $50 before they broke up our table. I moved to one of the other two 4/8 tables and was told by the room manager to go to the other table "to balance them out". As I sat down at the new table I commented that, "the tables were balanced with me over there." I caught a faint smile from another player and realized that they were moving me, the drunk tourist, to a local-heavy table. I flopped a full house the first hand after sitting down, a set the within the next few hands, and a straight before leaving the table up $300 after about 45 minutes of play. After winning my second big pot (everyone wanted to play hands with the drunk buffoon) a player commented just loud enough for me to hear, "He's doing pretty good for a drunk."
There are no rules against cursing at the tables, which I found to be very liberating.
Most americans there were from the east coast, which made taking their money all the sweeter.
During a no limit session, a massively overweight New Jersey-an came over to our table with $1000+. He straddled for $15 during his first rotation and I raised with an ace+rag preflop to $30, he called and I raised $30 again on the flop since my ace is better than his random hand and he misses the flop 1/3 of the time. He goes all in, which is an obvious tell that he has nothing. I look at the board, look at him, and say, "What a fucking asshole bet. You know there is no doubt in my mind that I have you beat right now." He says "then call". I say "There's no reason to risk my stack on you getting lucky." I shake my head, "What an asshole bet," and lay down my hand. He shows 9-10 off suit to another player to confirm what I already knew, no possible draws, just ten high. I was winning the hand 70% - 30%. "That's about what I figured" I say. Then he starts bitching to the dealer that I called him an asshole and demanding that I be reprimanded. "He can't call me an asshole." "I didn't call you an asshole, I just said it was an asshole bet." The dealer doesn't even respond to him, most likely because this wasn't the first time he heard him complain…plus I tip dealers. Fat man didn't straddle any more after that hand, but he (wearing sunglasses) would try staring me down before any hand was played….even after the hand was being played and I wasn't even involved in the hand…it was the funniest shit. I would be scanning the table and this huge jackass would be staring at me through his prescription sunglasses…so I'd lock eyes and smirk at him until he realized that he had to act first anyway and fold his hand. He left that table way down, and later on in the trip he threw away his $1200 within 30 minutes of sitting down at my table, he bitched at the dealer about some perceived rule violation. He really didn't like me and, for some reason, thought that people were intimidated by sunglasses and body fat…It also seemed like he was trying to impress/frighten with large, ridiculous bets. I'm not sure if I tilted him or if he just really really sucked at poker. Anyway, he was an asshole.
It is funny to encourage a balding canadian construction worker wearing a sleeveless Harley Davidson shirt that reads "Shift Happens" who normally drinks budweiser to start drinking southern comfort on the rocks. It is also funny seeing him hit on the wife of another player at the table before even finishing the first SoCo. It is only moderately funny seeing that player get removed from the casino because he has fallen asleep and is drooling on the felt after his second drink.
More overheard table quotes directed towards me:
"He tips a lot."
"If he's betting, he has it."
"He's a good player, you can tell because he doesn't get mad when he loses."
"If I had two of those drinks I wouldn't be able to do anything"
"It's a good thing this wasn't no-limit, I didn't think you had it." (after raising/reraising every street with AA)
"He doubled up through me and then he triples up and he took my whole stack." Girlfriend asks how. "He keeps catching cards!!" (I outplayed him)
"Somehow I knew you had that" (no way they could have)
The last night I finally got stuck. I lost $200 playing limit because I was bullshitting with a couple from MN. Then I lost $300 playing a rotating game of nl hold em/ pl omaha. I knew that I could win playing Omaha, and the game had switched to only Omaha. I went to the cash machine since I lost all the money that I brought/planned to lose that night, withdrew $300 and returned. By the end of the night I had turned that $300 into $1600 or $1700 and left up for the night $800-$900. And that, my friends is how you leave Aruba +$2200 which, incidentally, is also how you spell P-I-M-P.
posted by The Youngest at 1:00 PM
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