ID’d at MSG - really???

I’ve been travelling to the US since the late 90s and am used to the ID rules – anyone looking under 30 gets ID’d with no exceptions. But the exceptions always prove the rule and I’d never been ID’d anywhere in NYC before. I’d been to MSG numerous times without ever having been asked for ID since my early 20s and this came completely out of the blue.

It was hockey playoff season and the Rangers were playing at home – I’d been to the 1st playoff game as well as a few regular season games that season and on each occasion I’d enjoyed at least 1 beer with no problems getting served. So it’s the 2nd playoff game in early April and the day has been hot – after a long day I’d headed down to MSG with a thirst for a beer or 2 whilst watching NYR hopefully take down the 2nd game in a row. 

Just to put things in perspective – at this stage I’m mid to late 30s and stone cold sober so certainly don’t fit the bill of being underage or being refused due to being intoxicated.

I get asked for ID at the first concession stand whilst ordering a beer and produce my driving licence – this has my DOB and a pretty recent photo – I get a bit of a blank stare then finally the server says “We can’t take foreign driving licences – we need a passport”. WTF?? I don’t have my passport with me as I’ve never needed it before in the US and it’s far safer in the hotel safe especially since as I have a UK driving licence in my wallet. So I’m 0/1 and getting thirstier so decide to HUACA – same response at the 2nd concession stand. Now I used to work in a bar whilst studying and both the servers I’d tried were pretty young (early 20s) so I work out that anyone a bit older is going to use a bit more common sense / discretion – same result at the 3rd  and I’m 0/3. I then walk round to customer relations to see what’s going on. I show him my ID and explain that I don’t have a passport on me only to be met by “We’ve had this policy for years – everyone gets ID’d and any foreign residents must show a passport not a driving licence”. Now I know this to be BS – up to this point I’ve never even been asked for ID yet alone been told it’s passport only. I obviously don’t tell him as I don’t want them to implement spot checks in future but it’s of no use to me know as I’m parching for a beer.  I eventually find a much older server and I jokingly ask if I need ID to be met by his assertion that I’m older than his 40 year old son – OK so I’m slightly offended but at least I get my fix!!

As an aside here’s a couple of funny stories on the subject of being ID’d: 

In the UK we can drink at 18. I’d been drinking in this particular pub for a couple of years and on my 18th birthday I walk into the pub in my school uniform (usually I’d put on a different jacket so it looked like I’d come from an office rather than school) and get asked for ID by a barman who I’d not seen before. As it’s my birthday I have no issues giving him my driving licence but before he’s even had a chance to look at it one of the more regular barmen walks over and says “it’s fine – this is AC….” and his voice trails off when he actually looks at my ID to realise that I’m just over the legal age by about 18 hours.

In the mid 2000s we had a family gathering in Florida and I’m in the supermarket with my brother (he’s 12 years older than me). As I’m piling our groceries up the cashier asks “Who’s paying for this the son or the dad as if it’s the son I’m going to need to see ID”. I proceed to PMSL whilst getting my licence out and laughing at my brother for looking old enough to be my dad.

One jackass doesn’t want to chop

I’ve posted previously about an encounter in the men’s room during the break in a poker tournament here http://ayecarambapoker.blogspot.com/2018/05/that-was-worst-bad-beat-in-history-of.html?m=0. I seem to attract these sorts of nutters – when I come to power there will definitely be harsh punishments for those breaking my men’s room etiquette of eyes front, no talking and more than 2 shakes is effectively masturbation. But until I do come to power I’d better get used to the nutters.

As I walk into the men’s room one of the other players is describing the current situation of our tournament to a friend of his. Not very accurately I might add. And that’s where the jackass line comes up – that jackass he’s describing is me. In his mind it might make sense, to anyone actually at the poker table his rationale makes no sense whatsoever. He also doesn’t know I can hear him.

So we’re on a break during the later stages of a lunchtime tournament at TI – you know the drill that I use these sorts of tournaments to get some beers in with maybe some poker on the side and it generally works. The standard is on the poor side of variable but at least I can drink my entry fee in beer over the course of a couple of hours. There’s 6 players left fighting over a $1,650ish prizepool with 3 getting paid without a deal being done. An even chop would give everyone about $200 profit on their buy in. But today I’m running well, playing well and getting calls when I’ve got good hands which is a rarity in itself and I’m sat on about 150k of the 300k in table chips – there’s no way I’m agreeing to an even chop. Which apparently makes me a jackass. Or it does in the eyes of this guy who’s been pestering for a chop for a good ½ hour. 

As soon as we sit down from the break he brings it up again “Why won’t you chop?” “I will” I reply, “just not down the middle. I’ve got half the chips (around 30BBs) in play so why should I get the same as someone with 4BBs?” I ask.  He doesn’t seem to understand this. “Plus you called me a jackass”. 

Now I’ve probably been called every name under the sun at some stage of my life and it really doesn’t bother me – just do it to my face and if you do insult me please don’t then deny it. He denies it. “When?” he asks. “When you told your friend that you were only just behind the chip leader whilst you were in the men’s room” I reply. Now he goes a funny colour. He didn’t say much after that apart from all in when holding QQ and got called by someone’s AK which improved.

We ended up 4 way chopping during the next level – there were 3 players with similar chip stacks and I had roughly double so I took $500 to everyone else’s $380ish. I probably did myself out of a few bucks but was quite happy with the result.

As an aside I find it incredulous that many poker players are incapable of doing simple maths when suggesting a chop and can’t work out chip equitable payouts. Every chop calculation I’ve been involved in I’ve been the one to work out the payouts – this might be me being a control freak but some players seem amazed at the simplicity (I always write my workings down and ask someone to double check them so I can’t be accused of manipulation). 

So – would anyone have done this differently?

Some f*cker keeps nicking our glasses

A few years ago I found myself working in Amsterdam. This was a long term assignment so I rented my own apartment rather than being in hotels for weeks on end. As soon as people think of Amsterdam they either think of the relaxed drug culture or the red light district – neither of these interest me although no one ever believes me that the only way to watch English football being shown on TV was by going to the pubs in the red light district as they were the only ones to ever show it – honest!

I’d only been there a month or so and one of my friends came over to visit so I asked a Dutch colleague to recommend a few bars for us to try. His first recommendation was Arendsnest http://www.arendsnest.nl/OP-TAP/ON-DRAFT/ which is quite unique in that they only serve Dutch beer, whereas nearly every other bar will sell mostly Belgian or German beer. I was suitably impressed and we sat at the bar for a few hours sampling their selection – they have numerous beers on taps as well as bottled beers detailed in a menu about ½ inch thick. Quite a lot of these beers are produced in such small quantities that this was one of the only bars that sold them and nearly every beer had its own glass, some branded and some not but each specific beer type was meant to be served in a specific glass. As I was flicking through the menu I spotted a beer which shares my name – now if my name were Bud, Stella or Corona I wouldn’t be surprised but it’s not. My name is recognisable but not overly common so to find a beer named after me (they’d obviously done that!) was a pleasant surprise and I naturally ordered one. I was doubly surprised when it came served in its own branded glass with my name resplendently adorned across the side. Being doubly impressed I decided that the only proper thing to do was to pocket the empty bottle and glass as a memento.

I revisited this bar once a month or so for the next 6 months – every time I would sample a fair few different beers and always imbibe of my namesake beer. And always taking care to ensure I pocketed another glass with my name on. Until one visit where I was 3 or 4 beers into the menu and I ordered my namesake usual and it came in an unbranded glass. Shock horror I was not impressed. I asked the barman why it came in a blank glass when all the others had their own glass to which he grumpily replied “It usually does but some fucker keeps nicking our glasses”.

To this date I still have all but one of those glasses and every time I manage to get to Amsterdam I always head to this bar.

Flight delays - who cares?

One of the best things about working for myself rather than a company is the ability to use some common sense around travel. One of those is around class of travel – lots of companies specify a highest travel class dependant on length of flight i.e. transatlantic can only be business class or below irrespective of whether business is more expensive than first class. Airlines know this and can sell last minute business class seats at a far higher price than a first class seat on the same plane – it’s a fairly common occurrence especially on high volume business routes like London to NYC. So that is how I came to be in a 1st class seat (rather than business which I’d normally travel) on BA’s A380 from London to LAX one day in early July – I just didn’t think I’d be there for much longer than the 11 hour scheduled flight time.

I’d been to Dublin the day before so had booked an overnight stay in a hotel next to Heathrow airport – my usual route is about 1 ½ hours away from Heathrow so I couldn’t be bothered trekking back home just to return the next day. My flight was scheduled to depart at 16.20 so I’d had a lazy morning before leaving the hotel at around 11.30 and heading to check in. By 12.00 I’d checked in and cleared security (was behind Rod Stewart in the queue) and headed to BA’s Concorde room which is their top lounge at Heathrow. One of the best things about this lounge is that they serve Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle champagne. Now I’m not a big champagne drinker but given it retails for about $150 a bottle it would be rude not to partake. I’d arranged to have lunch with a friend in the lounge and we enjoyed a very leisurely lunch with about 5 glasses of champagne apiece before I headed off to the gate at about 15.30. Boarding commenced on time and I was offered another glass of champagne (they serve the same onboard in 1st) as soon as I took my seat (due to the UK’s licensing laws any alcohol served on the ground must have tax paid so the only alcohol offered pre flight is champagne). 

Push back was on time and we moved about 10 feet from the gate before stopping. And waiting. After about 10 minutes the captain announced we were being delayed and he’d let us know any updates. Nothing really happened for about 20 more minutes and I’d already turned on a movie. A few minutes later one of the flight attendants came down to offer drinks and snacks – offering profuse apologies that they weren’t allowed to open the bar yet so we’d all have to do with champagne – never mind. It turned out something on one of the fuel systems had failed and needed replacing – but they are continuing to serve the champagne so I don’t really care and by the time the movie is over I can barely see straight. Luckily the problems are sorted and we depart nearly 4 hours late – it’s now after 20.00 and I’ve had nothing apart from champagne to drink since before noon. I manage to change this by ordering a G&T as soon as we’re in the air. I opt to eat immediately and wash that down with some wine and I’m ready for a snooze about 3 hours into the flight. When I tally up my alcohol consumption I work out I’m pushing 3 bottles of champagne, a bottle of wine and a couple of large G&Ts but I still have a lot of training to do to equal 8 bottles detailed here https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports/1074418-8-bottles-dom-lax-bkk-sq-f.html

We get to LAX just after 23.00 local time (07.00 UK time) and for once CBP is completely empty – it’s probably a good job too as the last thing I needed was standing in a queue for an hour or so. I was booked into the Crowne Plaza at LAX overnight and I’m there by midnight to sleep off a pretty immense hangover

I’m pretty sure that I’m not Australian

I’ve been visiting the US since the late 90s and 1 thing that happens on every single trip is that someone thinks I’m Australian – without fail. I have no idea why and no one from the UK can actually believe it. Most people in the UK would put my accent as London / South Eastern England but I don’t have a distinctive regional twang.

Now we Brits are pretty picky on our accents – Scots hate to be called English, the Welsh hate to be called English and the Irish hate…. you get the picture. And don’t get regional accents wrong – Liverpudlians and Mancunians have completely different accents despite their cities being just 35 miles apart. So why is it that I keep getting mistaken for being from 12,000 miles away? 

Canadians are the same – they are continually mistaken for being American but being effectively next door neighbours they usually can see the similarities between their own and American accents. It’s the same for New Zealanders and Australians – the similarities are there but again they are very distinctively individual.

Every single trip I take I will usually get asked where I’m from in Australia, whether I’m from Australia or if I’m in a taxi to an airport I’ll be asked if I’m flying back to Australia. I’ve even had one of those questions from a CBP officer whilst he had my UK passport in his hand.

I even had 1 guy, having been talking to him for quite a while about London (as he knew I lived there) to completely disbelieve that I wasn’t from Australia and questioned me 2 or 3 times about whether I was really Australian. “Yes” I replied. “I’m pretty sure I’m not Australian”.

Go and find a cheaper table

Mrs AC and I decided to take our summer holiday in the Caribbean – we settled on the Dominican Republic and were staying at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino resort. It’s a fully all inclusive resort with Spa, golf course, pools, beach and everything you could want for a couple of weeks relaxing in the sun. Oh – it also has a poker room!

They only ran tournaments a couple of times a week and the 1st time I ventured into the poker room there was only a 2/5 cash game running. I stood watching as a couple of ultra aggressive players sat down with thousands having a willy waving competition by raising each other virtually every hand with both players generally holding air. It wasn’t a nice atmosphere and I didn’t want to leave Mrs AC alone in the casino for too long on her own given how I only wanted to play a tournament – in hindsight I should have sat down with the minimum buy in, shown some patience and waited for a hand good enough to jam with

I went back a couple of days later for a scheduled tournament – I think the buy in was something like $250 and the standard was actually pretty good. As soon as I sat down I gave Mrs AC about $200 to go and play blackjack to keep her occupied. About 10 minutes later she comes back into the poker room asking for more money. WTF? “How can you have spent that much in 10 minutes” I asked. “It’s $25 minimum” was her response. The entire table looks at her and replies in unison “Go and find a cheaper table”. Having given her some more money and told her to play a $5 table I can get some peace at the poker table – it ended up with 4 of us chopping for about $1,500 apiece so even with Mrs AC’s expensive mistake it’s a fairly decent profit for the evening and it probably just about covered our tips for the week!

Why are you even in the (insert expletive here) hand?

Do these nutters follow me around as I’m sure I seem to run into far more than my fair share of them? I really would not be surprised if the entire world was just a massive conspiracy with literally everyone on the entire planet working to get in my way or say something so fucking retarded that I want to scream. If it’s a conspiracy I’m onto you – there’s obviously a 7am conference call every morning where everyone on the planet, except me, is briefed on where I am and how to annoy me that particular day. Or if it’s not then the planet is actually populated by complete fuckwits who really shouldn’t be allowed out on their own.

I’m sat at a fairly unremarkable game, enjoying a few beers and winning a few chips – I’m probably at about $400 from a $300 buy in but there’s been nothing overly interesting to report over the space of a couple of hours or so. There are only 2 mentionable players: 1 is sat 3 seats to my left in the 8 seat. I’m going to refer to him as aggro but he wasn’t your standard aggro player – he’d not play a hand for a round or 2 then he’d go mad. He’d often bluff out of position and would frequently massively overbet pots. One particularly weird hand was when he 3 or 4 bet shoved with a massive over bet (presumably to steal but I have no idea what goes on in the heads of these loons) from the blinds holding 8-9 suited and spiked trip 9s to bust out players holding AA and QQ. The player, in seat 1, holding AA had left and was replaced by a “lady”, maybe mid to late 40s but her behaviour was anything but lady like, as I found out a few hands later (I’ll call her AL for angry lady for short). 

I’m in the BB and it’s limped 4 or 5 ways when I look down at Q-2 off and I check. Flop comes Q-9-2 rainbow. I don’t want to bet here just to win $12 so I check, aggro bets $35!!! AL calls and it’s folded round to me. Aggro’s bet suggests he has nothing but what has the AL got? She’s only been sat down 15 minutes and barely played a hand so I’ve not seen her range. I’m only really behind Q-9 or a set of 9s (sets of queens or 2s are unlikely given what I hold) but given she only bought in for $100 if she had either of these hands she should have raised so I figure I’m ahead. I raise to $100, aggro folds and the AL calls. Turn is an Ace and the river is a blank. Without waiting for me to show the AL turns over A-10 off – err ok, so you called $100 with Ace high, wtf!! I turn over my cards and scoop the pot. The guy to my left, who I’d been chatting to for an hour or so, says “that was weird” to me. I say “Yes – not even a straight draw on the flop”. Neither of our comments are overly loud and I don’t think anyone other than those directly next to us has heard us.

The AL rebuys and we’re half way through the next hand when she starts piping up. “Unbelievable” she mutters to no one in particular, “lost a fucking buy in to those fucking rags”. Now she gets a bit louder and looks over towards me and sarcastically says “Nice hand”. I look at her and say “yeah – big blind special” back. She continues muttering loudly to herself for a couple of minutes and it’s 2 or 3 hands later when she screams “Why are you even in the fucking hand?” quickly followed up with “I suppose you’ve got fucking money to fucking burn have you?”. I might have left out a few swear words there – anyone that regularly reads my witterings will know that I’m rather partial to fruity language but I’m usually careful not to swear if I’m angry or berating someone. An argument quickly loses credibility if either side can only reel off a list of expletives and the loser of an argument is usually the one who resorts to bad language. It’s also good for winding people up – if you can remain calm, good natured and rational whilst they are foul mouthed and seething it can push someone further over the edge.

So I didn’t reply to her comments. I continued chatting to the guy on my left and we were both quietly chuckling about how wound up this lady was. “Don’t tap the glass because it scares the fish off” was one of his comments as we continued to listen to her seething. Now it’s about 20 minutes since that particular hand and neither I nor the AL have played another hand but now I get involved in one.

I win the hand on the turn or river and scoop without showing and now the AL says to her neighbour “He’ll have fucking gotten fucking lucky cos I’ve seen him (referring to me) do it before”. Again I’ve probably missed out a few of the expletives but you get the drift. Then she turns towards me and says “You’ve been getting fucking lucky all fucking night haven’t you?” to which I don’t reply, which is then followed up by “You still didn’t tell me why you were in the fucking hand did you?”. Now this is getting ridiculous – we’re probably close to half an hour away from this hand and if she hadn’t been seething about it I would have filed this hand under “unremarkable things that are instantly forgettable”. But then I wouldn’t have a story to write about. So I turn to her and say in my politest voice “The one where you limped with Ace 10 then called a bet then a raise on the flop with Ace high and lost all your chips to my flopped two pair from the big blind. I don’t really recall the details”. Cue the guy to my left pissing himself laughing. Strangely she doesn’t respond and I continue “So I’m in the hand because no one raised my big blind – please tell me how you would have played it”. This actually shuts her up and I didn’t hear a peep out of her for the next hour whilst she was sat down. 

I get back to chatting with the guy on my left and am actually left in peace to enjoy the rest of the session and some more beers.