Mid-Morning Poker At Mohegan Sun Is A Dark, Dark Place
Dear Poker fans,
If you’re looking for a fantastic escape from your family until they assume you’re dead, look no further than the poker room at Mohegan Sun. Nestled in the rolling hills of eastern Connecticut, along the banks of a river that the white man probably destroyed, Mohegan Sun stretches toward the sky like a glistening boner of opportunity.
As you step through the sliding doors, you’ll be bathed in the ejaculate of an air conditioning system that clearly wasn’t designed by the Native Americans who own the place. And most importantly, if you’re contemplating suicide, come visit. You’ll realize just how much worse life can get.
Mohegan Sun is a mausoleum for the half-dead, a tomb that houses the whitest of trash. Many of these corpses cling to life with the assistance of motorized scooters, as the task of walking would surely flatline their heartbeats one final, irreversible time.
Pitbull was in the house to entertain them. I know this because I rode in an elevator with a 65-year-old woman from Maine who was still moist from his performance the night before. “He brought the house down. Such an amazing live performer. We’ve seen him four times,” she oozed, scratching at the eczema clustered around her sagging, labia-like elbows folds. “Mr. Worldwide,” she reminded me gravely. Then she stepped off the elevator and probably fell down the escalator. A boy can dream.
I make a point to sample the local cuisine whenever I’m on the road. And at Mohegan Sun, that means chips! I had hung on to my spelling bee money with a tighter fist than the one I use to remove those slippery rear beads from Frankie. You should see THAT process. It looks like that scene from The Rock when Nicolas Cage gingerly removes the VX gas balls from the rocket. Too fast and you risk prolapse; too slow and he thinks I’ve lost my fastball.
I exchanged $1000 for a stack of green, $25 chips at the gated window of our temple’s bursary. “Good luck!” lied a woman named Bess. Let’s be honest– Bess is a bitch who wants me to lose all my money.
From there it was toxic walk through a maze of jingling slot machines. These were occupied by glass-eyed jellyfish whose guts spilled over their jorts and cargo shorts. Their plumbers cracks were split so wide that you could count the individual hairs that velcroed their swamped cheeks together, catching all manner of dingleberries that simply could not tumble through such a dense jungle of ass fur.
Soon, I found myself in the poker room. At first, it seemed like a welcome haven from the stubborn barnacles outside. I joined a $1-2 cash game–the lowest stakes–thinking I would lose my money at a slower rate. And I was right as it took four hours for the fellas to wipe me out. From 11AM until 3PM, I made a bunch of “friends,” learned how to play poker like a pro, and watched my spirits sink lower than the time I never got over my ex-girlfriend when left me four years, two months, sixteen days, and three hours ago. WOMEN, AM I RIGHT?!
The people at my table were like the exact opposite of the Avengers. To my immediate right sat Mark, an older gentleman, probably in his early 70s. He wore a MOHEGAN SUN shirt that was clearly purchased in the gift shop, which made me think that some untrustworthy hooker had scampered out of his room, stealing his clothes in the wee hours of the morning. HOOKERS? I TRUST THEM AS FAR AS I CAN THROW THEM THROUGH A WALL!
To my left, a Japanese man who also didn’t speak to me because his language and mine are so different that they caused Pearl Harbor, or something. He fidgeted a lot, played with his chips. Kinda seemed like he knew that we all knew he had a small penis, and we were wondering what it looked like. I pictured a nipple on Chewbacca’s body. He also wore sunglasses so dark and thick that I assumed he was a blind magician. The kind you’d wear if you needed to weld a car part and you didn’t want to burn your eyes.
Across the table, next to the dealer, was a man so large that he was personally responsible for reducing the capacity of our table from ten to eight. I looked around at all the other tables, and they all had ten players. Ours had eight, and there were people waiting, but the floor boss had the grace to remove two chairs to make it seem like we had a special, smaller table. In reality, we were simply accommodating the school bus who had rolled in on his army-strength scooter. He breathed in a rattling way that made it sound like he had full corn dogs stuck in his throat. He was a grump.
Their footwear was appalling. One dude wore nikes that had holes in them. Serious holes. They looked like pulled pork, or a rottweiler’s chew toy. I wouldn’t care except that he had enough money on the table to clearly afford a new pair. I guess it didn’t matter since most of them would lose their feet to diabetes eventually, a process that was expedited by their countless orders of strawberry milkshakes from the cocktail waitress. I followed suit.
Mark made so many trips to the ATM that I thought they would roll it over to his chair for convenience. He shoved, lost, and bought back in at least three times. Because why not continue to fork over the money he gained from that injury settlement he won when the vending machine collapsed on top of him because he was shaking it so hard to dislodge his bear claw? He’s got his music going. Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers, and Fleetwood Mac pipe have him boppin’ his noggin every so often. He can’t help himself.
“What’d they have at the buffet today?” one asks.
“Sweet potatoes, corn, string beans, meatloaf,” another drools.
“Sounds pretty good,” says the last, setting off a murmur of agreement that ripples around the table. They’re all thinking of the sweet potatoes and the meatloaf. Nobody would try the corn or string beans. Shit sucks.
There was a lesson I learned in Rounders that says, “if you can’t spot the sucker at the table in your first half hour, you ARE the sucker.” It took me no more than three minutes to realize I was the sucker. I made mistake after mistake, pissing everyone off and breaking the spell of their monotony. I would call a bet and toss my chips into the pot, whereupon they would magically roll on their edge all over the table like minesweeping robots seeking out IEDs in the Korengal Valley. They never slid or settled into the middle for me; they spread everywhere and created a goddamn ruckus each time. What’s more, I was constantly unaware of when the action was to me–when it was my turn to do something. I tried so hard to pay attention, but the dealer was constantly reminding me, “to you.” It made me feel like the biggest dimwit in a room full of 10-watt lightbulbs.
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But what a lot of these guys didn’t know is that I knew I was the sucker. And when you know that, you can use it to your advantage. I started asking dumb questions about poker, making a meal of my inexperience. I would repeat terms I’d heard like “straddle” and “side pot” when they didn’t apply at all. And just when I’d roped them all in, pretending like I didn’t know an ace from a two, I went all in. With the nuts.
Except I didn’t have the nuts. I’d miscalculated my straight. I only had four of the five cards you need. There was a gap between the eight and the ten (you need a nine) and I didn’t have it. Somebody called, I turned my cards over triumphantly, and then I tried to pretend it had all been a bluff. As I watched the dealer corral all the chips towards Mark, who won with a pair or something, I realized that poker is more than a game; it’s a lifestyle. And as long as I continue to exercise, and talk to my family, and buy new sneakers, I’m never going to fit in with these guys. And I’m ok with that. Because I’m more of a roulette guy anyway.