The Blind Paying the Blinds

Earlier this week, I had to travel to Kansas City for work. As an executive, it's important that I set a good example for our department by finding an inexpensive hotel. So, I had no choice but to accept a comped room from Harrah's North Kansas City. My sacrifice better earn me a gold star from the Morlocks in Accounting.

After a great dinner of veal spiedini at Mike & Charlie's, I headed up to the poker room. The usually busy room had only two tables of $1/$2 NLHE running, sparse even considering it was a Monday night. The players told me that most of the bigger action games had relocated to the recently opened Hollywood Casino at the Kansas Speedway, which apparently has several NLHE and PLO games at the $2/$5 and $5/$10 stakes most days Thursday-Saturday, with juicy $1/$3 NLHE throughout the week. Conversely, most of the regular low stakes LE games had settled in down the road at Ameristar, a move that has been in progress for some time.

It didn't take long to realize that making a big score was out of the question. Though my game was full, there were only three stacks over $300, and my opponents were mostly almond brokers. As is usually the case in these kinds of games, my profit came mostly on two hands. I got a courtesy double up for nearly $200 from a guy who declared he was playing his last hand and was racking up. I called his preflop raise with 87 offsuit, flopped the nuts on a rainbow 6-5-4 board, and maneuvered him into calling my river all-in with just pocket Yaks. My other big pot was picking off a stone cold four barrel bluff when I went with my read and went to war with my pocket 9s which were good against this yahoo's 84 of crubs unimproved on a Q-J-5-5-J board; calling the pot-sized $75 river bet was tough, but hearing the yahoo's sigh as I put in the chips made stacking his chips all the sweeter.

Towards the end of the session, an older guy wearing dark glasses took an open seat at the table, with a younger guy sitting down next to and slightly behind him. Because a player had busted out of the seat the hand prior, the old guy was sitting down in what would have been  the small blind, setting off this exchange:

Dealer:  "Do you want to buy the button?"

Old Guy:  "Sure. How much is it?"

Dealer:  "Three dollars."

[Young guy puts out $3 for Old Guy.]

[Dealer deals cards.]

Old Guy:  "Am I the small blind?"

Dealer:  "You bought the button, so you're actually the big blind."

Old Guy:  "I'm the big blind?"

Me:  "Actually, you're both blinds."

Young Guy:  "No, only he's blind."

[Crickets.]

Umm, yeah. Old Guy was blind and Young Guy was there to read his cards and the bets to him. I suddenly had a flashback to Dawn Summers' 2010 vacation to the Midwest, in particular where she had an entertaining encounter with a one-legged man in Des Moines. Considering it was pushing midnight, even I could see my "fox pass" was an omen, and I decided to rack up a healthy profit.

Me:  "Good night, and good luck, y'all."

Old Guy:  "See ya later!"

Indeed.