|  Vegas November 2006 | | Day One (Thursday) | | Last Updated: 2006-11-10 | | I'd suggest reading "day zero" first if you haven't yet, I think it will help you appreciate this one a little more...
| | So the flight was uneventful other than the fact that it was somewhat bumpy almost the entire flight. Enough to be annoying, not enough to spill drinks.
| | Takes me about 30-45 mins to get from the airport to the hotel, then another 20-30 to check in and I get to my room with 11+ mins left in the first quarter of Rutgers/Louisville. For those who don't know RU is my alma mater so you can imagine college football has had no interest for me in a very long time. It's funny how something can hold no meaning for you for the longest time and then all of a sudden it's almost life and death...I've never been so excited about a college football game, and for those who don't know Rutgers fell behind 25-7 early in the second quarter and then shut down the second best offense in college football for the rest of the game, came from behind and won 28-25. I was climbing the walls stressing out the entire second half as the RU defense clamped down like no defense I've ever seen and the offense chipped and chipped away. It was an astounding comeback.
| | But right about when RU had fallen behind 25-7, Joann calls me quite upset. Seems she was on our 9-month-old Dell, heard a pop and the computer stopped. Now you know how my run-up to the vacation was, here I am in my hotel for all of half an hour and my team is getting crushed and I may have to buy a new computer...
| | Searching the memory bank it occurs to me that it could just be the internal power supply, and I suggest that Joann calls either Dell or the local CompUSA and see what they think. Joann give the kids the cell phone and makes the call, CompUSA agrees with my likely diagnosis, if they have the part they'll fix it while Joann waits. So Joann, who had just built a fire, closes the doors on the fireplace, loads the kids in the car, unhooks the PC and off she goes.
| | Right on cue, RU scores a TD. My life is now mirroring a football game.
| | Eventually RU started driving for either a tying field goal or a go-ahead TD in the 4th quarter. In the middle of the drive, Joann calls with the good news. PC is fixed, I don't have to buy a new one, we just spent $75 and we're ecstatic about it. Rutgers ties the game with a FG. I'm as stressed out right now as I was during the Eagles/Pats Super Bowl game watching RU. I hope I didn't wake anyone up when they eventually kicked the winning FG...
| | Then Matt calls and wants me to meet him and a softball guy at the burger joint in the hotel. Some of the worst service we've ever seen. Unbelieveably slow. While we're waiting for our burnt-to-a-crisp burgers, the fire alarm goes off. After about 5 minutes we finally get an announcement that they're checking into the alarm. Still no food. 2-3 minutes later they announce that it's just a false alarm. 5 times. Alarm still going...still no food. Ahhhh...finally we get food. No, the anticipation didn't make the burnt burger taste better.
| | Then Matt spent a little time at the BlackJack table. Matt is a little different style BJ player than me. I'm methodical, strictly basic strategy, I count cards and I bet accordingly. Matt is more of a feel/rush player. He's more tolerant of swings than I am, and I've seen him play rushes to big profits. Where I bet consistently and wait for a favorable deck, Matt tries to parlay big wins into bigger wins. But you can imagine that when I'm watching him and I know the count of a deck, well, sometimes I cringe watching Matt.
| | But on one hand I saw one of the most positive counts on a deck I've ever seen. I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. This was MIT break the casino big. If you could come in in the middle of a hand (no casino will ever let you thanks to the MIT crew) I would have dropped 1/4 of my bankroll on the next hand, it was that good. Matt, playing two hands, made a particularly small bet on each. I can't keep quiet. "Matt - if you're going to make a big bet, this is the hand" I say. Matt looks at me and pops more chips out on the table. Right on cue, dealer's up card is a two. Deck is like 90% face cards and dealer has a 2. Matt holds on both hands, dealer turns up a 10 just like she's supposed to...and hits a 9. AUGH!
| | I think I feel worse about it than Matt does...as in poker, sometimes you do everything right and you still lose.
| | Then it was on to Mirage for a little poker. Matt tried a $70 sit-no-go. I warned him that it was extremely short-stack poker, he decides to try anyway. 1000 starting chips, 25-50 starting blinds, 15 minute rounds. If you don't win a hand in the first 15 mins you're less than 10X big blind already. Matt understands what I was talking about now. An all-in-fest like you've never seen. He got short stacked, doubled up from a very short stack to a short stack when wired As held up, then I got called away and didn't see how be busted out.
| | I sat down at a no-limit cash game. There were 10 people on the list, only five actually showed up. We played 4-5 handed for a while, I doubled up when wired As held up for me and some poor sucker flopped top pair of 6s and thought all I had was a two overs...well, I did, luckily for me he was wrong thinking all I had was A-K or A-Q and he just kept calling me down including my all-in when he was pot comitted. Then I took someone else out on a coin flip after I had raised pre-flop with A-9 (good hand 4 handed) and he came over with what turned out to be double-infinity (for the poker-lingo challenged, does "snowmen" help?).
| | But then we went to three handed and got broken up, and I gave about half my winnings back on one dumb call on my part and one I think I had to make. The one I had to make...I've got Q-9, flop comes AAQ. Small bet, I call. Blank turn, small bet into me, call, A on river. Bigger bet...about pot size. I'm pot committed at this point, he turns over the case Ace. Ouch.
| | But I'm still up, so I'm going to already do what I promised myself I wasn't going to do. I'm off to the 2am tourney at Aladdin...wish me luck! | | Post a comment |
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