Saturday..........
I wake up with the alarm clock blaring....12:00 noon.....fully clothed....laying on the bed....my two feet still on the room floor....(how did I pass out like that?) I'm lucky I didn't get sick and pull a
Bon Scott..that would violate one of the rules of blogger gatherings i.e. 'Don't Die'.
I was groggy and needed an hour just to get my wits about me....so I do that and take a shower. I get down to the Venetian at about 1:30PM. I was ravenously hungry and went to the Noodle Asia place. I got Minced beef over rice with a fried egg sunny-side up on top....pure bliss. I also got some dumplings called Sui Mai or something like that. They were shrimp and cabbage and other ingredients that were awesome. I really like that place.
I went to register for the Winter Classic...but I needed a Venetian rewards card. I should have got one on Friday but it was easy enough. I get to the register line and also get in on the 'Horse Race' that
On_THG was running. The bet was 5 horses for 10 bucks a pop. I picked
Biggestron,
Columbo,
MiamiDon, Waffles, and
TripJax. Instant Tragedy and
TheWife were getting everybody to sign an acoustic guitar to ship over to Iraq for
DrChako. This adds a nice touch to the gathering.....and makes one feel lucky. Recognizing what American Troops do for us is not done enough.....they do what they do...so we can do stupid things like drink, gamble freely, and go about our lives as normal. Something as simple as signing a guitar and awarding an authentic American Flag to the winner of the tourney
REMINDS us all.
The tournament was run very well. 6000 chips to start with extra levels added in....similar to the Venetians usual tourneys but modified slightly for us. I'm surprised that they would actually do this after reading about the past Winter Classic issues. My starting table was as follows. Me....
SuprStoner (I was unable to steal his blinds and didn't realize who it was until I thought about it),
Grubby (very impressed his ability to zigzag his way to the final table....very impressive...he also had a penchant for finding food somehow....maybe that's the essence of Grubby), Girlfriend of
SuprStoner maybe? not sure,
VinNay, April somebody I think, Another dude I don't know,
StakKling,
Drizztdj (the
PaiGow Prince), and
Grace (She wants that Heisman trophy winner
Tebow....really bad...) to my right. Some early pots were taken with the Hammer. Every time somebody got the Hammer...they took the pot from me...I'm not kidding three times! Welcome to the
WPBT Winter Classic Dave! Later on I took a couple of pots. There were two huge pots I took with an all-in vs. Grubby and another with
VinNay and Grubby involved in the pot. The first was my all in with A-K (I think I had a club) after a flop of Ax-5c-3c....Grubby called with 10c-8c....I avoided the flush somehow with my
TPTK.....whew. The second pot I had
Kd-
Qd and raised out the blinds...but Grubby called ugh..and
VinNay called double ugh. There was a
raggy flop and I bet out 2K....Grubby called again ugh...and
VinNay called...(damn). A
Qx fell on the turn and I fired another 2K.......Grubby called again (he stole every pot before this and was bullying the table except for my double through). We checked on the end and my Q's took the pot. Later a few of the guys got knocked out....Grace (she grew up in New England so we talked for a while) went all in...very confidently I might add (I instantly put her on K's or A's)...I had Q's. I folded....duh. I later found out she had 8's...or that's at least what she told me. I felt kind of stupid but I swore she had K's or A's. A few more people get knocked out and the table gets broken up....damn......
My next table had Me,
Blinders with a huge stack to my left (I got talking with him about
FantasySportsLive and congratulated him for having such a brilliant idea...I wish I thought of it), I forget who the lady next to him was,
Otis (This guy can play...he has an intimidating presence on the table) ,
Biggestron (I would later double him up with a huge gaffe on my part), I forget who,
LJ (Look out...she's good and pretty easy on the eyes making for a deadly combo at the table),
GeekandProud (The Rooster was making life hard for him even though he was to his left), the
Rooster (the eventual winner), and
Joe Speaker (wearing a scarf and playing an Iron Maiden drum solo....really) to my right. OK, this table is a fucking nightmare. I had a decent stack of about 13K. I go card dead. My blinds are being stolen between giant pots. My next half hour was a disaster. I had pocket J's and the Rooster pushed me off with a huge
pre-flop bet....I think he showed pocket 8's (My nemesis hand on this day). I
pussed out just like I did earlier when Grace went all in. If I ever want to get to the final table again.....I need to correct this....I also have to pay fucking attention. I went card dead again and was thinking what a puss I was...that's when
Biggestron went all in. I being a preoccupied moron and not hearing it....called with A-10o.....I tried to get out of it but was obligated when the poker room manager came over. I double up
Biggestron. Which in hindsight wasn't the worst mistake as the non-call of the Rooster in my opinion was....I double up
Biggestron anyway. He also happened to be one of my horses for the pool...so again....at least I didn't lose my whole stack. After another nightmarish couple of orbits I get K's. I go all in early position and got one call...I double up but my M is at about 5. A few hands later I get knocked out somewhere around 35
th. Otis goes all in as he is picking the right spots. I called with A-
Qo...but not feeling confident. He had K's and knocked me out. So altogether I vault everyone on this table to the paid spots.....I mean this crap happens all the time now.....NO MORE. I am not going to play this way anymore....3 mistakes and you basically can kiss any hope goodbye. Usually someone makes 1 mistake and get knocked out...I got three chances to change the outcome. I fucked them all up. I'm preoccupied lately with the Real estate thing and a new baby on the way. I need to focus on each hand as I'm playing them without anything clouding my judgement. That starts now....anyway off that tangent.
I went out to the bar to get some drinks and I met a bunch of other people that I wanted to meet. I met
F-Train (yet another cool person to talk to)and his girl the
B.W.o.P.-Asian Jew (at least I heard her for the whole afternoon...LOL...and that's what her T-Shirt said),
SmokKee (
SmokKee is another funny guy...we talked for a while about the
Bodonkey tourney and his beloved '73 fully modified Ford Explorer) ,
BuddyDank (I was talking to him for hours...and grabbed another meal at the Noodle Asia bar later), Cactus Jack (an interesting guy who has a radio show about
Hold'em with Tommy Angelo...I of course forget the name of it. The funny thing is that
BuddyDank was sitting there in the conversation and I was like "Have you heard of
BuddyDank Radio? I mean he had like 50 listeners...." ....Cactus Jack just looked at us kind of weird and started talking about his radio show).
AlCan'tHang, Iggy, S.t.B,
Waffles, and shitload other people were doing shots. By the time I went up to Waffles a little while later he was visibly shattered and I tried to talk to him for a couple of minutes but he pretty much passed out right after...on the bar....
LOL. I have to say the
AlCan'tHang saved Waffles ass....you owe him Waffles...big time. I overheard some bad things that were going to be done to you....
LOL. So after that I was hungry....I wanted more
NoodlesAsia.
BuddyDank and I went over to eat and talked about a whole slew of stuff. I don't think I'll ever be moving to Iowa after talking to him. He's a cool dude and he looks like Phil
Hellmuth. I think he should exploit that at the poker tables somehow. I also found out he's a damn
Steelers fan (D'oh). I don't think that my hating the
Steelers was going to stop him from betting on them....oh the poor
Steelers...they got swamped by the Pats. (I was able to watch Brady throw two touchdowns over that douche bag DB that was yapping about a guaranteed victory on Sunday at the airport). One thing I'll say about everybody who brought their girlfriends or their
wife's......Everybody without question 'Married-up' or '
Girlfriended-up'.....that goes for myself....my wife wasn't there but I'm lucky to have such a cool and beautiful wife!
The final table was in progress after we ate and there was this guy wearing all 'Miami' stuff that wasn't....(this is where I realize that I am a complete retard). I'll tell you when I get a chance to get out and drink with no responsibilities....I tend to go overboard. As
Schaubs knows.....I can look coherent but not actually be coherent....he corrected me the night before...and introduced himself. I totally forgot. This is what happens when the father of a young child who doesn't get out much goes to Vegas and drinks his face off and his memory goes down the drain....anyway I even had to reintroduce myself to a stunned
Schaubs later in the night! I had to make sure I didn't get it wrong again. Sorry about that! It's fucking hilarious and it's true......
The Rooster was all over the place at the final table. Somehow I thought that he and Otis were going head up at the end.
Columbo had to get out of there and catch his plane....
MiamiDon had Queens and was against Queens.....
Drizz, Grubby, put up a good fight....but Otis and the Rooster were going to battle for the trophy. It's kind of funny how it worked out.....Q-9o vs. Q-8o......an 8 on the river makes the full house for the Rooster (very impressive play....you just don't know how to play the guy...he's that good) . Wow....what a dramatic ending.
Garthmeister is another character......he makes me laugh...a lot. He won the Horse Pool.
I headed back to the I.P. around midnight.....I couldn't believe it was midnight already....I had to go home the next day! I started drinking Greyhounds to get some thirst quenched. I was going to go into the 'massive' poker room in the I.P. but I just didn't feel like playing anymore after 8 hours in the tournament. Besides that
TripJax was killing the table on 1-2
NL and was tilting everybody there. Before he got to his seat he sees me from across the casino...and yells "PokahDave....HEY...POKAHDAAAAAAAAAAVVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEE"....he was feeling NO PAIN at this time...so I went to witness some of the
NL play. I see Trip has pocket 4's....he raises to 15.....four callers.....flop was Ad-5x-3d....He bets 15 and everybody folds.
PokerPeaker was sitting right next to him. Every time I passed by the table
TripJax he was stacking chips. I needs to play like that....no fear....he's very
Goot. I decided that I wanted to play
Blackjack again.....I went to the single deck Queens
Blackjack or whatever game it is. I likes me some sucker bets at the
Blackjack table. Nobody was there at the table and I just put my card counting skills to the test. The dealers dealt one single deck the whole way through....and the 1 dollar sucker bets were actually worth it. I turned my 250 into 475 over the next couple of hours. Afterwards I gabbed with
GCox for a while and turned in at a reasonable 4:00AM. I'm not going to get Blotto two nights in a row...although I was feeling like I could have drank the whole night into morning.
The next day I just took it easy and said goodbye to a couple of people....I hope to be back sometime in the future.............
I headed back to the airport on the shuttle and realized that I probably spent a total of about 30 minutes outside the whole 50 hours that I was in
Las Vegas. I got to the airport and had some time before catching the plane. I sat down at the airport bar and got a few beers and watched the Patriots destroy the
Steelers! Some dude named Valdez was gabbing my ear off....when he realized I was from Boston he says "Hey man..Boston sucks dude!"....I thought Yankees fan immediately...but no...he was from L.A. He was a huge
Lakers fan....and was all over me about the Celtics. I mean...I'm not really a
BBall fan but the Celtics look pretty good these days. He starts arguing with anybody who will listen at the bar. Some guy from Texas sat down and was a
Steelers fan. He and Valdez almost got into a fight. I left and the guy from Texas looks him in the eye and says "Don't even talk to me....Don't talk to me or I'll beat you senseless"! I got up and left....I thought....
how can you be pissed off if you are leaving or arriving to Las Vegas. Especially after meeting some of the coolest people ever and having one of the best times ever. Really.
Posts
