Wintermute, Emptyshell and me (NC)

[Mendacious]

...the first part of the "real story" of my poker night out with Wintermute, and Emptyshell.

We meet at a good Chinese restaurant in Berkeley where we make introductions, and Wintermute orders soup for himself with the intention of mooching off of Emptyshell and myself. That’s ok, all is forgiven when Mute pays Shell twice for his portion of the bill. We decide to carpool to the poker room and the only question in my mind is “where will Shell sit in Mute’s no doubt totally hot 2 seater Porsche?” but to my dismay we are taking Shell’s 4 door 14 years old piece of crap Sentra.

On the way to the Grand, much poker talk ensues wherein I find out that Mute IS in fact the greatest living player of PL08. Mute cuts a tallish figure with an air of friendliness, intelligence and mischief. Shell, reminds me of a tool (engineer) I knew in college, who though smarter than all of us put together, had an open-mouthed Napolean Dynamite cluelessness look about him that completely belied the brilliance contained inside. (I rip him because he took my money, but more on that later).

We arrive at the barn called the California Grand, put our names on the waiting list, and Mute orders a “Negro Modelo” with a lime. You draw your own conclusions. Before I can even get the lay of the land he has sat himself down at the Grand’s version of 21, where the rules apparently change on a nightly basis as the house experiments with how to flout California law and come up with a game where they make all the money. Mute is not concerned with the latest rule changes...as he informs me that he “never loses at this game”. No problemo, he buys in for $200 and proceeds to play NL21, where he shoves on every hand. This is a pre-cursor to his NLHE play. Not long thereafter, he is down to his last $200 having brought somewhere between $800 and $1000 with him. He informs me as he shoves his last $200 that he is just a couple of double-ups from getting back to even. I nod my approval. WM is dealt 9J (J– as in Joker). 21 at the Grand has Joker’s in the shoe. Also, 22 wins sometimes, 21 others times. Sometimes you are the dealer, there are all sorts of whacked rules some of which are probably evolving in the managers’s office as we are playing. On this particular day 9/Joker (we think) means that Mute has an 11. He casually requests that I spot him $200 so he can double-down, informing me with complete self-assurance that this is a “standard basic strategy” play. The dealer has a 10. I wonder to myself as I reach in my wallet, “how the [censored] does he know what the correct ‘basic strategy’ play is here when they literally made this game up last night”? Notwithstanding these doubts, and my fuzzy recollection that you do NOT double down against a 10 even in regular 21 (much less in this game where there conceivably 12 more 2's (jokers) in the shoe, I fork over the $200 thinking wondering how I managed to get scammed by this guy. Of course the dealer gives Mute a 10, he is almost back to even, and he owes me a “Negro Modelo”. My name is called to the tables.....to be continued.