The Cat in the Hat @ the WSOP ME (long)

[AAmaz0n]

Some folks have requested a better look at the "lucky hat" that Denise bought me for the WSOP ME, so I'm posting a picture along with my "hat story."



I think I would have had a much better chance in the tournament if I could have just gotten the Rio to spell the name of the room correctly. I have to have those AA in front. At least I'm still optimistic enough to put up the Trojan victory sign. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

So here's the story:

We are in the WSOP store the day before I play and I'm talking to Denise (my partner) about how I hope that Gaming Club doesn't insist on me wearing one of their baseball caps when I play because I really don't "do" the whole cap thing. She spots this fuzzy funky thing and starts joking about how I should wear that instead.

After some comment about how I would rather wear that than a cap, Denise starts daring me to wear it during the event, and takes it up to the register. I can't believe that she is really going to buy it, but she challenges me to wear it through the whole event if she pays for it. I hate to back down, and start thinking about if it might be +EV, so I finally agree to this.

On the way back through the convention center, we visit with Susie Isaacs. I met Susie a few years ago when Commerce had a ladies weekend event (I knocked her out at the final table), and we run into each other occasionally at some of the ladies events in SoCal. Susie checks out the hat and winks at me, "If you wear this, I'll bet you wind up on TV."

If you have ever seen the outfits that Susie wears to a tournament, you know that she is clearly the expert on poker attire, so I start thinking about this. I would rather be known for winning the tournament, but I still have at least 10 minutes left on my “15 minutes of fame,” so maybe it’s not such a bad thing. And Denise reminds me that I’ve already “pinky swore” to wear it.

I consider that maybe I can get out of it by the Gaming Club folks having some objection, but of course, they are in love with it; it goes well with their “Jesterware” and they just encourage me to leave it on.

Sure enough, the next day on the way into the tournament I get stopped by a TV crew – it wasn’t ESPN, I didn’t recognize the markings on their gear – and interviewed about being in the event. I think it went OK, but of course all I’m thinking about is my starting “M” (Harrington vol. 2) and how to play in a very deep stack NLHE game, so I have no recollection of what I said. They did a follow up interview during one of the breaks, and I remember telling them how I played good survival poker and handled a short stack well. If anyone ever sees the thing please let me know.

Unless I was ugly or stupid, then just don’t tell me. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

At the table I can tell that the guys that I’m playing with think that I’m a real goof wearing this thing and I start again thinking again about how the hat could be +EV. None of these guys have played with me before, and I could promote a table image of being some dizzy broad that found her way in. When asked what I do for a living, I respond cheerfully, “oh, I’m just a housewife.” Hey, it’s kinda true; I don’t have a “real job” or anything, right?



“Ha! I’ve got my chips in Klingon attack formation; let’s see them attack my blind now!”

Most of the folks who have played with me here probably realize that I play ….. well, maybe just a bit on the tight side. I believe that the phrase “tight as a clam in the North Atlantic” was used once. At KotZ my raises usually get a lot more respect than I wish and I have a hard time getting my hands paid off. But these guys don’t know that and I’m looking forward to getting my big hands paid off more than I usually do.

Somehow it didn’t work out that way, and I’ve talked abut that in my trip report. I couldn’t understand why they were getting out of my way so early on until about three days later when I ran into John Vorhaus again, and remembered him coming to my table early in the event.

True confession; I used to hang out on RGP, and go to the local ARGE event (ESCARGOT) and still try to make it most years. This is why I know John and Lou Krieger and some other folks from that crowd. The posters that come to the excursions tend to be the good posters from Rec that actually have their head on straight and are a lot of fun.

The first night we got into Vegas I ran into John at this pseudo-Celtic pub at the Rio, the Tilted Kilt, where he was writing away on his laptop. He was blogging for UB and we chatted a bit.

When we started playing on Friday, for some reason John Vorhaus brings two of his assistants over and introduces them to me. He explains that they will come by periodically inquiring about my chip count and to please cooperate with them. I agree, and he goes off before I get a chance to ask just why he is interested. I don’t think much more about it.

Doh!

For some reason it didn’t occur to me to think about how this might have affected my table image. In hindsight, seeing someone from the media come over to the table expressing an interest in another player might raise a red flag for some folks. My only excuse for not recognizing this is that I was suffering from temporary cranial-rectal inversion (Contrary to what Denise says, it is not a permanent condition).

I still don’t know just why John was even interested. Maybe it was just that he knew me and was curious, or he was looking for an angle since there were so few women in the event. I’ll have to ask him the next time I run into him.

In any case, I still need to work on the whole table image thing. Maybe I can get some lessons on how to look more like some Tourist on Tilt besides wearing funky headgear. . [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Shauna