A Win at the Palms, and a Loss to Scotty Nguyen

Adam Schoenfeld and I recently went to the Palms Casino to play our worst poker. The game was $2-$4 hold'em and we made sure that one of us capped every pot before the flop. I was losing, and Adam kept turning sets and gutshots and was tipping the dealers $5 to $10 a hand. I was enjoying the game when my 7 5 turned into a straight flush. The dealer explained to me that I won the high hand and was going to receive $599. I tipped him substantially and asked for the rest in $1 chips. At that point, I had so many chips on the table that I could not see my cards. Therefore, I had to play in the dark for the rest of the evening. I won a few hands, and then ran into Adam's four sevens. He too won a high hand, but it was only for $47, which he gave to the dealer. We continued playing for another hour, and kept on winning and overtipping. By the end of the session, we had most of the money on the table, and the dealers were very happy. The best part of the evening was that neither of us received a comment about how bad our play was. The other players enjoyed the action instead of whining about it.

The next day we went to Scotty Nguyen's house, because I was going to interview him. I think we were there for five hours, and I forgot to interview him because he and his family were too much fun. I have never celebrated Christmas, so it was exciting for me to see how happy Scotty and his entire family were at his household. He had flown his mother to Las Vegas from Vietnam, and she had met most of the family for the first time. Prior to going to Scotty's house, he had bragged about his cooking, so I ate five plates of the great Vietnamese food that I thought he had prepared. After I was stuffed, his son told me that Scotty's brother was the cook. Thus, I had gone to Scotty's house to interview him, eat his good cooking, and learn the secrets of poker. Instead, I met his wonderful family, ate his brother's fine cuisine, took some pictures, and lost $40 to Scotty in a game that he plays better than poker – pool basketball.