Larry (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} larrykang) wrote,@ 2005-11-07 02:23:00 |
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King of Vegas - Spike TV
Quick story - I made it through the auditions and callbacks and am in the final selection pool and got a videotaped interview that wound up being much longer than I was orginally told. I find out before Thanksgiving if I'm on the show or not. I'd bet even money that I make the cut. Reasons later.
More newsworthy is that top poker pros Erick Lindgren, Cyndy Violette, Evelyn Ng and Mike Matusow also auditioned and will almost undoubtably be in the show. The company producing the show is G Media and I'm checking out the producers behind it. There's a segment in the show called "The Schick Quattro Poker Face of the Night, that marries the art of the bluff with Schick’s razor". Hope it'll be good as "Hold'Em or Fold'Em" with Chris Ferguson.
So, anyway, Roberta and I got to Bally's Atlantic City early for the 4PM audtions. I showed up and saw that most people were just wearing regular clothes (or not very stylish ones) and we had been told to dress up for a night of gambling. Don't these guys know TV? I changed from my Pussycat Lounge shirt and leather jacket into an Armani tux jacket with a new Zegna silk shirt with the french cuffs adorned by vintage silver cufflinks I had just picked up. They featured the (Silver anniversary) Harvest Moon Ball. I'm very happy with the cufflinks - for sentimental reasons. And they sure seemed to bring me luck at the tables. We all started with $5K at craps, pai gow poker and blackjack and I "won" each table I played at chip count wise. Not that any rules were given to us besides 'play!'. A big thing here was that no one at the table had a clear strategy of what they wanted to accomplish at the table. In blackjack, I bet small on the first hand, and then big on hands 2 ($1.5K) & 3 ($2K) - won all three and hit a blackjack putting me over $9K. I then bet low the rest of the session with a comfortable lead. No one came close and 4 at the table busted. At one point I got split black aces, followed by two black kings and wound up getting my four $100 bets pushed when the dealer hit a 5 card 21. At the end I gave one guy a $1K chip and he hit a blackjack but then got that PUSHED by the dealers 3 card 21. We had every rule advantage but this quirky one. What happened to a natural being an auto winner?
Anyway, then there cut the field and we had a six handed ($10K chips) NL Texas Hold'Em "tourney" starting at $100/$200 blinds. I got two black nines in my first had and had the lead til the river when my opponent hit her gutshot straight. I had bet near pot every street, and 5x the BB pre-flop and had position. I was called every street. On the river, my opponent went all in for $1K and after showing my hand I folded. There's more details here but another time. I was basically trash talked to by Andrea and her straight for the rest of the tourney. And she was the only active one at that table. Otherwise, I spoke about 90% of the words at that table and most people were pretty much entirely silent except for fold, call and bet talk. Don't these guys know how these things work? That's boring TV.
-- some poker talk follows - ignore if you don't play poker -
So, short stacked with $1K, I joked about how I could not make any wrong decisions now since I basically had only one move and asked them to count how many mistakes we made - and the table made so many. It was ludicrous how badly people were playing. Anyway, I went all in for $700 an orbit later with 73s and got called by Andrea with 45x. I flipped mine saying 'I bet they're live' and followed with 'oh. I'm leading'. Later, I push in again with A4d and get two callers. I predict a dry side pot bluff and lo and behold it happens as someone bluffs with nothing but King high - and I'm still in with a pair of Aces. Lucky me. Then the next hand it's three way and I name the winning hand as just the mid pair. Later, still pretty short, I make a mistake when I don't push with my AJx UTG (which would have rivered top pair) because I feared being knocked out too much - "I need the TV time". So, in our 15 minute tourney - no one got knocked out and pretty much no one except me and Andrea talked. My M was under 3 for most of it and really I should have pushed all in more but just couldn't risk getting knocked off the table.
--- end poker talk ---
Then I was invited to stay for the interview... they said 5-10 minutes but ours took a while. At one point I told them that their questions bored me (and I'm sure my answers bored them as they could barely understand the poker or gambling stuff I mentioned) and things picked up. I wish I had a voice recorder on me then, but that interview ran long and I think it's clear that I'll be the arrogant know-it-all character with the interesting background for the show. :) Wait til they see me and Matusow yak it up. Yet, I spent most of my time talking about real Kings of Vegas (guys who bet with $500K behind them on a craps table or Daniel Negreanu with his $500K heads up matches) on how in general the applicant pool were a bunch low level gamblers. Literally one guy brought a bunny and magic tricks - entertaining yes, but a King of Vegas? More like Clown of Vegas. This led them to have me specifically criticize certain players and I obliged them - something I will NOT do on the show. Oh yeah, I also danced the lindy charleston and threw in a shorty george and boogie back for them. I did Spirit Fingers too and they totally missed it.
If God, fate or karma (or whatever) gives me the chance to win, I'll do my best. But, seriously, the thing is a crap shoot and I'm not doing it for the money or have any hopes pinned on it. I think I'm an excellent games player though and would rate my chances better than most - but again luck will rule the day here. I'm just concerned about some good tv time and not look like a villain. If I win though, I'll tell you it will be a victory response for the ages. I figure it will be something like what I did when I totalled my Volvo on the LIE in 1997 (I lost two tires and had limited control).
Kang of Vegas
Quick story - I made it through the auditions and callbacks and am in the final selection pool and got a videotaped interview that wound up being much longer than I was orginally told. I find out before Thanksgiving if I'm on the show or not. I'd bet even money that I make the cut. Reasons later.
More newsworthy is that top poker pros Erick Lindgren, Cyndy Violette, Evelyn Ng and Mike Matusow also auditioned and will almost undoubtably be in the show. The company producing the show is G Media and I'm checking out the producers behind it. There's a segment in the show called "The Schick Quattro Poker Face of the Night, that marries the art of the bluff with Schick’s razor". Hope it'll be good as "Hold'Em or Fold'Em" with Chris Ferguson.
So, anyway, Roberta and I got to Bally's Atlantic City early for the 4PM audtions. I showed up and saw that most people were just wearing regular clothes (or not very stylish ones) and we had been told to dress up for a night of gambling. Don't these guys know TV? I changed from my Pussycat Lounge shirt and leather jacket into an Armani tux jacket with a new Zegna silk shirt with the french cuffs adorned by vintage silver cufflinks I had just picked up. They featured the (Silver anniversary) Harvest Moon Ball. I'm very happy with the cufflinks - for sentimental reasons. And they sure seemed to bring me luck at the tables. We all started with $5K at craps, pai gow poker and blackjack and I "won" each table I played at chip count wise. Not that any rules were given to us besides 'play!'. A big thing here was that no one at the table had a clear strategy of what they wanted to accomplish at the table. In blackjack, I bet small on the first hand, and then big on hands 2 ($1.5K) & 3 ($2K) - won all three and hit a blackjack putting me over $9K. I then bet low the rest of the session with a comfortable lead. No one came close and 4 at the table busted. At one point I got split black aces, followed by two black kings and wound up getting my four $100 bets pushed when the dealer hit a 5 card 21. At the end I gave one guy a $1K chip and he hit a blackjack but then got that PUSHED by the dealers 3 card 21. We had every rule advantage but this quirky one. What happened to a natural being an auto winner?
Anyway, then there cut the field and we had a six handed ($10K chips) NL Texas Hold'Em "tourney" starting at $100/$200 blinds. I got two black nines in my first had and had the lead til the river when my opponent hit her gutshot straight. I had bet near pot every street, and 5x the BB pre-flop and had position. I was called every street. On the river, my opponent went all in for $1K and after showing my hand I folded. There's more details here but another time. I was basically trash talked to by Andrea and her straight for the rest of the tourney. And she was the only active one at that table. Otherwise, I spoke about 90% of the words at that table and most people were pretty much entirely silent except for fold, call and bet talk. Don't these guys know how these things work? That's boring TV.
-- some poker talk follows - ignore if you don't play poker -
So, short stacked with $1K, I joked about how I could not make any wrong decisions now since I basically had only one move and asked them to count how many mistakes we made - and the table made so many. It was ludicrous how badly people were playing. Anyway, I went all in for $700 an orbit later with 73s and got called by Andrea with 45x. I flipped mine saying 'I bet they're live' and followed with 'oh. I'm leading'. Later, I push in again with A4d and get two callers. I predict a dry side pot bluff and lo and behold it happens as someone bluffs with nothing but King high - and I'm still in with a pair of Aces. Lucky me. Then the next hand it's three way and I name the winning hand as just the mid pair. Later, still pretty short, I make a mistake when I don't push with my AJx UTG (which would have rivered top pair) because I feared being knocked out too much - "I need the TV time". So, in our 15 minute tourney - no one got knocked out and pretty much no one except me and Andrea talked. My M was under 3 for most of it and really I should have pushed all in more but just couldn't risk getting knocked off the table.
--- end poker talk ---
Then I was invited to stay for the interview... they said 5-10 minutes but ours took a while. At one point I told them that their questions bored me (and I'm sure my answers bored them as they could barely understand the poker or gambling stuff I mentioned) and things picked up. I wish I had a voice recorder on me then, but that interview ran long and I think it's clear that I'll be the arrogant know-it-all character with the interesting background for the show. :) Wait til they see me and Matusow yak it up. Yet, I spent most of my time talking about real Kings of Vegas (guys who bet with $500K behind them on a craps table or Daniel Negreanu with his $500K heads up matches) on how in general the applicant pool were a bunch low level gamblers. Literally one guy brought a bunny and magic tricks - entertaining yes, but a King of Vegas? More like Clown of Vegas. This led them to have me specifically criticize certain players and I obliged them - something I will NOT do on the show. Oh yeah, I also danced the lindy charleston and threw in a shorty george and boogie back for them. I did Spirit Fingers too and they totally missed it.
If God, fate or karma (or whatever) gives me the chance to win, I'll do my best. But, seriously, the thing is a crap shoot and I'm not doing it for the money or have any hopes pinned on it. I think I'm an excellent games player though and would rate my chances better than most - but again luck will rule the day here. I'm just concerned about some good tv time and not look like a villain. If I win though, I'll tell you it will be a victory response for the ages. I figure it will be something like what I did when I totalled my Volvo on the LIE in 1997 (I lost two tires and had limited control).
Kang of Vegas
