Lisa

Last Thursday night was the start of the holiday weekend and I went to Hollywood Casino to play 1-2NL.  This would be my first time playing 1-2 there and I wasn't sure how it would differ from the 1-3NL game at Ameristar.  I got a late start, so I didn't get there until around 9pm, but they had 3 tables going and the tail end of the nightly tournament.
I didn't call ahead, so I just put my name on the list when I got there.  The floor guy said I was 5th on the list, but that it should just be about 5-10 minutes.  I guess that should have been my first clue that things were a little crazy.
I was actually seated very quickly.  I bought in for $120.  I was seated straight across from a young-ish Asian woman (Lisa) who immediately began talking to me about her hair.  It was a long, loud, confusing story.  I interrupted her to nicely point out that the action was on her.  She said she knew that, but continued with her story for a bit before throwing in $40 in chips.  One or two guys called (the rest of the table was men).  She bet $100 on the flop and one guy called, saying "I've got a draw."  I think she went all in on the river and he folded.  She continued to talk loudly and semi-incoherently the whole time.
Lisa played every single hand and raised pre-flop every single time.  Most of her raises were $30-$50, but sometimes $100, and sometimes whatever she had in front of her.  Sometimes she would look at her cards, but most of the time she wouldn't.  Many times she would ask everyone at the table whether they wanted her to look at her cards or not.  When the action was on her, she would always talk for awhile before acting.
The first hour was the toughest for me.  I had come to the casino to play poker, not to play "put in your money and spin the wheel."  My first instinct was to change tables.  Lisa was overwhelming.  She slowed the game to a crawl.  I soon learned that she could get away with anything she wanted because of the huge amounts of money she was giving away to the dealers and the other players at the table.  None of the players (at our table) wanted to complain about her because they didn't want her to leave or change her mood.  The dealers didn't want the floor to intervene because they were getting $20 and $30 tips every hand.  Some of the other players in the room complained about the volume.  The floor asked her a couple times to be quieter, but then did nothing when she wasn't.  She told crazy stories about her life as an exotic dancer/escort, and she gleefully rehashed again and again all the hands she won with inferior cards.  She frequently demanded to see flop, turn, and river cards after the hand was over, which all the dealers obliged.  I could go on and on about the antics, but that wasn't really going to be the point of this post.
The point is that I decided to stay and play with her to strengthen my mental game.  From a strategic point of view, the game was very simple: wait for a premium hand when I can get heads up with her and get all my money in.  Easy enough.  Meanwhile, don't let the craziness get to me.  There were a lot of things about this situation that would normally really bother me, so I just set my mind where it needed to be and jumped in.  Patience wasn't really a problem.  I didn't really want to play a hand, but I knew I had to take advantage if the situation was right.
After about an hour of folding and feeling zen, I picked up pocket 10s in middle position and pushed all in over whatever her crazy raise was.  Everyone else folded.  She asked me if I wanted her to look at her cards and I said I didn't care.  I knew it didn't matter.  She didn't.  The board had 2 overcards to my 10s, Q and A.  In very dramatic fashion, Lisa turned over her two cards: Q 4.  I decided to rebuy for $150.  By this time I had a pretty good grip on how the game worked.  Every hand was either uncontested, or someone heads-up with Lisa and every hand was a big production, but Lisa had a pocket full of orange chips and a bra full of black chips and she didn't seem to care at all how much she lost.  It would be silly to walk away.
The second hour was a little crazier.  Whenever she lost a big pot to a guy she insisted they buy her a drink, which was usually a shot.  She started going all in preflop more and more.  Whenever she lost all her chips, she would pull out another orange chip and buy $500 from someone at the table so she never had to go to the cage.  She would put two blacks in her bra and sometimes push in the other $300 before the cards were even dealt.  At minimum she raised to $100 preflop.  She broke just about every rule in the poker room, but no one seemed to care.  At one point she took another player's hand out of the muck to see what he had after no one would tell her she couldn't.  Afterwards, the floor quietly told her not to do that again.
After she lost a few thousand in short order, she sort of slowed down.  She still played every hand, but sometimes her preflop raises were more normal-sized and once she even called $2 without raising after making a big speech about how that was the only time she would ever do that.  Which makes my next hand seem more magical to me somehow.  I was in middle position with 44.  I planned to fold to the big preflop raise that I expected, but for some reason, she only called under the gun.  Maybe she thought she was the BB.  Maybe she just spaced out for a minute (she was pretty sloshed by that time).  I don't know.  She didn't even make a speech.  She just threw in $2.  I called.  I think almost everyone called.  I flopped a set of fours on a very non-scary board.  Of course there's no point in slow-playing.  Lisa acted first and bet something like $50, I raised all in, everyone else folded, she called with nothing and didn't improve.  So I won back my first buy-in plus a little more.
I didn't play another hand for awhile.  The third hour was tedious, but I felt really good about staying focused on the game and being able to adjust to the changing conditions.  Lisa continued to play every hand, but she was at least looking at her cards and folding in hopeless situations.  There was even one hand that ended up being contested by two other players at the table - the only time that happened while I was there.  Sometime in my third hour I picked up AK and called Lisa's small raise preflop.  The flop was A66 with 2 spades and Lisa bet $100.  I pushed all in.  She stalled for a long time.  She asked me if she folded would I let her see the turn and river cards.  I said sure even though I didn't see how that was up to me.  She finally folded.  She claimed she folded a flush draw that would have hit, but I don't think that's what she really had.
I played for awhile longer, but didn't play another hand.  The shenanigans continued, but I slipped away +$120 and feeling good about my lack of tilt.