Las Vegas Trip Report Part II: Reuniting with Koala, Las Vegas Friends and the Return of the Man-Hating Woman

Outside the Mirage on a great hot summer day

Reuniting with Koala

This past trip to Las Vegas was at a somewhat unusual time for me. I tend to travel to Las Vegas in late January/early February, May/June and early September. Many years ago I would sometimes go in the early part of July, but this year's trip was scheduled way in advance and with a specific reason: to coincide with the vacation trip of my Aussie friend, Koala.

I first met Koala in Las Vegas in June 2012 when he planned a special tournament designed to assist Tony Bigcharles. Koala and I shared a meal and played some poker at Harrah's, having a great time and laughing quite a bit.  Over the next several years we traded emails, connected through social media and online forums and occasionally played in some online tournaments. I was not able to meet up with him his last trip to Las Vegas, so I made sure I wouldn't miss this one.

Although we had not seen each other in five years and most of our friendship had been through electronic communication, it was like two old war buddies having a reunion. We played several poker sessions together, shared some meals and had plenty of time to just b.s. about poker, our poker friends and life in general.He was around to see some of my craptastic poker play (including my torching off my stack with A-K vs A-A on a king-high flop!) and put on quite a show at MGM on a special day with hourly high hands when he hit several in a row.

We both stayed several nights at Excalibur and used that as our home base for that week, hitting the Excalibur poker room, MGM, Wynn/Encore, Mirage ... As the week ended, we both checked out of Excalibur -- me to stay at another hotel, and Koala to pick up his rental car and take a trip to the Reno/Lake Tahoe area. As always, seeing and playing poker with old buddies makes for a great Las Vegas trip.

Las Vegas Friends

Having visited Las Vegas something around about 100 times over the years, I have some friends who either live there or visit frequently like me. A shout out to a couple of my dealer friends I briefly saw last trip, AlaskaGal -- Kristi -- who deals at the Mirage, one of the rooms where I've had regular success, and Ron -- balt999 -- who deals at Bally's, which used to be my number one poker room in Las Vegas.

I was happy to catch one night with VegasDWP before he left on one of his many trips outside the U.S.A. David was able to sling some cards with Koala and me at Excalibur, then treated us (thanks again, sir!) to dinner at the Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay. As I recall, he might have been heading out after the meal to a Trump supporters rally ...

And, u see, what would a trip to Las Vegas be without seeing infamous Las Vegas and national poker grinder TBC -- Tony Bigcharles, of course? Tony and I got to play a couple of times at Wynn/Encore and also at Planet Hollywood. While playing at Wynn?Encore, I also got to meet one of TBC's other acquaintances, Benny Profane.

And then there is Alysia Chang, my former personal Las Vegas Uber driver and now sometimes source of transportation. She was able to put her coding work aside for a bit and and showed up with her brother, Solomon, at a dinner with friends at Nine Fine Irishmen in New York-New York. Also at the dinner were Koala and Stacy, another TBC acquaintance from his time at the Gold Rush in Jean, NV.

 Solomon, Koala, Alysia, Stacy and me

Alysia was also able to borrow her brother's car while hers was in the shop, drive us to the Roma Cafe for dinner, then to Red Rock for a late-night poker session.

My veal parmigiana at Roma Cafe

And ... on her drive back from Hoover Dam with Koala and TBC, she dialed me up for a fun phone call, including Tony's request for me to purchase his plane ticket to Cleveland while he was en route to the airport. Good times!

The Return of the Man-hating Woman

Just about a year ago, I wrote a blog post titled Attack of the Man-hating Woman, about an altercation I had with a very unpleasant woman at a poker table in Caesars Palace. The memory of this woman has been burned into my brain. I was really hoping to never run into this wretched person again. However ...

One of the days of the trip, Koala and I headed to play some cards at MGM. We were put on the wait list but were told that a new table would soon be opened. A few minutes later we were getting settled into our new table when I spotted the woman in seat two. Yes, it was the man-hating woman! I didn't know if she would remember me after a year, figuring that her interaction with me was probably indicative of her regular behavior at the table. I was in seat five and was keeping an eye on her, wondering if she would be involved in any interesting situations. My intuition was spot on. She won a hand -- maybe a suckout -- against the guy in seat three. He gently ribbed her about it, and she abruptly got up from the table and moved to seat nine. The guy started asking "What happened?" The man-hating woman refused to say anything. She preferred to play poker with her headphones on and , ala Tony Bigcharles, kept her face buried in her cell phone as she played Candy Crush Saga, Bejeweled or some other game. I got my old blog post up on my cell phone and asked the guy to read it. He kind of looked at my phone and didn't show much interest until he seemed to understand that the post was about her. He then read it and had a funny look on his face. Then he understood. It wasn't him. It was her.

I had no desire to again have any type interaction with such a pathetic human being. I did catch her first name from the MGM log in system at the poker table. I wanted it just in case there is some need for it in the future. She seemed to be friendly with one of the dealers, so I wondered if she is a regular at MGM.

My assumption is that one or more of my blog readers might have played poker with this woman one or more times in Las Vegas. Look the the frumpy, somewhat overweight woman with brown hair, pale skin and brown glasses who plays poker while wearing headphones and keeping her nose buried in her cell phone playing phone games when the action is not on her. If she seems to get pissed off for relatively no reason at a man -- BINGO, you have now experienced the man-hating woman. Good luck with her!

Thanks for reading.