Read Pluto Walks the Earth, Chapter 38: Buttoned Up
Sausage
Just another Monday night in the Wynn Poker Room. I’m as usual playing 7-card stud $300-$600. It’s a big cash game for an open room, usually half pros, half whales. Paul Fong plays. Vince McInerny, that Kyle kid, whatshisname, Wetheral. Jerry Nguyen. (They know me as Sausage, short for “Sausage Fingers,” because I happen to be portly. So what?) So there’s them and a few businessmen just off the corporate jet from Hong Kong. At midnight, a kid wearing some weird swami robes sits down with a rack full of purples. $12,500. A little short-stacked. There’s 25 hold ’em tables and he sits here. I mean, you’ve been in a poker room. It’s like a prison cafeteria. Why does the fresh meat have to pick my table? I’m looking at him; is he even old enough to be playing? But he answers the question for me. “Hello, everybody. Wish me happy birthday.” McInerny and Nguyen make a big show of congratulating him. Me, what the fuck do I care? Play cards.
My stack is just north of $100k. But it’s been a good night. I’m a rock, all right? Probably before the kid sits, I’ve just let 20 hands go by, even the big blinds. Slow and steady. Nothing cute. Pushing the big hands early. Hammering the nuts. On his first hand I'm dealt wired kings. And a queen of hearts is my door card. All right? And the guy at the end of the table is showing an ace of spades. He bets out. Two others call, including this kid, with a 4 of clubs, so maybe a high pair in the hole. I call, all right? No raise. So after the folds, there’s 4-way action.