Happy Chinese New Year

Look what Santa brought me <3

Happy Chinese New Year to all my friends.  As it is, Chinese New year was nowhere on my radar.  Well, it wasn’t until I got to the casino last night.  I play in Venice at a place they bill as an “American Style” casino.  I can’t afford to play in the rare cash game that goes, but they host a lot of tournaments, (nightlies through WPT events and a lot in between) so I keep busy.  Last night I was going to play in a satellite for a pretty big tournament series later this week.  The drive SUCKED.  I was thirty miles from home before the THICK frozen fog lifted.  It was nuts.  I was crawling along at 40ish miles an hour on the autostrada even with my fog lights.  Ferrara is known for it’s crappy fog, but this was a whole new level.  I finally got to the casino right when the tournament was starting which would normally mean that I am just going to be sitting down ten or so minutes in; however, there was an obscene line just to get to the check-in desk.  So I am standing there waiting, agitated, and eventually I notice that I am tall.  Random. Yes, but that hasn’t often happened (outside of elementary schools) since I lived in Japan…  Then it hits me.  The entire line is Asian!  Normal to see a higher proportion of Asians in the casino than any other place in Italy, but this was twilight zone weird.  Then it clicked, Chinese New Year. 

Eventually I’m admitted to the casino, register for the tournament and head back to the poker room.  The way it works here is, you pay for the tournaments in one area of the casino, then go to the poker room, hand in your ticket and get a seat assignment.   Yesterday they had turned more than half of the poker room into a reception area for the holiday.  I had to “permesso” my way past herds folks eating oranges and drinking champagne to get to the window.  At one point I look down and there is a long rib on the floor in front of me.  Eeeew.  Yet another five minutes to get a seat card…grrr.  I then “permesso” myself into the area of the poker room still being used for, of all things, poker and find my seat.  Scanning the room, I am once again, the only female in the field.  My seat is right on the edge of the room so I have Italian chatter at my table drowned out by the Chinese chatter from the other room…which really was just made by the management placing a line of free standing posters at the table’s edge to segregate the play.  I was card dead for a long time.  I saw Q-3 and J-2 off-suit more than I care to mention.  It was brutal.  The only chips I pulled came from well timed steals here and there.  The Italians have very aggressive poker styles for the most part, and that’s fine by me.  They will often bet for me and build juicy pots. 

Forty plus minutes in I look down at my first truly playable hand, K-Q off-suit.  After being card dead so long, it was like looking at two shiny Aces.  Clearly they weren’t, but go with it.  I put in a 3.5 times raise from middle position.  Button calls as does the small blind.  Flop comes K high with two hearts.  I have no hearts.  Small bets out 2/3 of the pot. I flat.  Button three bets it.  Small has me covered and pushes in.  Suddenly my cards feel more like sardines than aces.  I think and fidget.  Either I am slightly ahead, way beat right now or he has a strong heart draw.   Couldn’t figure it out so I fold.   Button calls with a gut shot.  Small turns over A-J off.  No one even pairs; A-J takes the pot with high card and I am twisted that I didn’t have a better read and triple up.  Oh well.  Crazy. 

And so it goes.  I still have plenty of chips.  I have played the Italian boys before.  It’s going to be fine.  Another level ticks past.  Players are being sent packing like a speed round of The Apprentice.  Lots of chips on our table and I want them in my stack.    At some point I notice an I-phone peek through the poster screen and take my photo.  Um, really?  Oh wait, there’s another.  WTH?  I actively catch six photos being taken of me.  So strange.  I’m sitting there thinking about how odd this is.  I give myself a once over, checking for toilet paper on my shoe or lipstick on my teeth.  I don’t seem to be doing or wearing anything truly embarrassing.  The fellow next to me notices the phenomenon, looks really hard at me, then down at my seat card which has my name printed on it.  He makes a strange face then goes back to his cards.  Clearly he couldn’t make heads or tails of it either.  If it isn’t that I have dinner in my teeth, is it that I am female and playing poker?   Then it hits me.  They clearly think I am someone else.  Going through my mind’s rolodex of tiny female poker players with short blond hair, I settle on Jennifer Harmon.  Since she is married to an Italian, it isn't that far fetched.  I have a good laugh figuring that one short blond haired Anglo must look like every other short blond haired Anglo.  Who knows if I nailed it or not.  Who cares.  It was as close to a paparazzi experience as I expect to have and it tickled me to no end.

So the tournament and the digital film kept rolling.  I pick up a small pot here and a steal there, but no really big hands until this one:  I call the BB with 78h.  Button bumps to 4xbb.  BB called, I called closing the preflop action.  Three to the flop.  A78 rainbow.  BB checks, I push expecting any ace to call.  Original raiser folds.  BB calls with a weak ace – bingo!  He turns his kicker – boo!  "Permesso"!  I’m wading back through the Chinese New Year celebration on the way to my car.  Bet Jennifer Harmon would have played that better.  Happy New Year. 

This morning I went to get my paperwork renewed that lets me enter Italy and live here.  It seems that mine had expired…before my last trip to Vegas.  I hadn’t noticed and, lucky for me, neither did the immigration agent who checked my papers.  Oops.  It is always fun going to get papers done here.  Well, at least it makes for funny cocktail-hour fodder.  With Vegas on the horizon, I am happily digging through my wardrobe for lighter weight clothes.  I’ve even set aside a bathing suit.  May be wishful thinking, but I sure wouldn’t mind a little sun kissing right now.  I need to look good for my Asian fan base you know.