|  Vegas November 2006 | | Day Three (Saturday) | | Last Updated: 2006-11-12 | | Softball Saturday. I have to be honest, even about 5 minutes before gametime I had no enthusiasm for softball. But it's funny how just a little competition can get me going. First a quick note for my far-off softball playing friends. Start with 1-0 count, stealing allowed after ball crosses the plate, any ball hit over the home-run fence ENDS THE INNING. We were just a few batters into the first inning, I'm playing catcher and I'm already looking for an opportunity to throw behind one of those bastards taking a few steps off first every time I bobble the ball a little. So much for my lack of interest, I wanted to beat this team. Alas things didn't work out, after getting to within a run we had a very bad fielding inning and gave up 8, eventually falling 13-9. But Spoked Wheel Dr was well represented, Matt went 3-3 with one bomb to the fence and I think 4 RBIs, I was 2-3 with a pair of RBIs.
| | Double elimination so we were guaranteed two games. Unfortunately we should have gone back to our rooms after the first one. Game two was a 10-0 "mercy rule" loss in which we had exactly two baserunners and one of those got doubled-up, had one inning end on one batter after leadoff hit a rocket that cleared the fence on us. We then proceeded to wait an hour and a half to two hours for a taxi that never showed up, thankfully a nice woman working in the park office gave us a phone book so we could call an alternate.
| | Finally back to the room to clean ourselves up. With my opportunities to hit buffets dwindling I was determined to get to one so I blew off Matt who wasn't remotely interested in either the buffet or the walk of about 2/3 the length of the strip. But the Luxor buffet, as always, was a great buffet for the $20 price tag. Obviously not the gourmet-in-a-pan of Bellagio, but if you're looking for more standard fare with lots of choices at a reasonable price, I've never been disappointed by Luxor.
| | Another long walk back to the hotel and I find Matt at the craps table going through his usual wild swings. If you know craps, Matt's a "Don't Pass/Don't Come" guy. For those that don't know craps, Matt's betting against the shooter rather than with them. Which means he's generally unpopular as almost everybody bets with the shooter. And he found a buddy also playing the don'ts.
| | Now Matt wants no part of shooting the dice, he passes them every time he gets them. So I tell him if he throws, I'm playing and I'm betting against him. Sure enough next time around Matt agrees to take the dice, so I plunk down a few $$ and play the pass. Understand that Matt plays a little higher stakes than me, his bets are about 20 times mine, so Matt quickly goes from whining to trash talking about how I'm making piddly little bets against his big money. Sure enough Matt takes round 1, he rolls a point and then quickly sevens out. The dice went around the table, we all mostly held even for a bit, but then they came back to me and I went on a roll. Good for me, somewhat bad for Matt. Even though he was betting the don'ts he also put a little money on some numbers including 6 and I was rolling sixes like crazy. But they didn't make up for the big don't bets and when it was all said and done I nearly doubled up and Matt had lost a chunk of his stack. I stopped playing at that point and just watched Matt get it all back and then some as there were very few points hit for a while after that. Everyone came away happy, I'd won back at craps what I had lost the night before.
| | Matt couldn't tear himself away and I needed to play some poker. Over to Harrahs for a little more $1-2 no-limit. For the third time in three tries, I sat down at a no-limit cash game and more than doubled my money within the first 10 hands. This time I had A-3 of diamonds and a loose player raised out. Since he was loose I thought I might have had the best hand so I called as did a few others. Flop came J-rag-rag but two diamonds. Dude bet about $20 into a $30 or so pot, with the flush draw and the over to the board I was easily getting the right odds so I called. Diamond on the turn, and I went into my act. I shake my head and "dejectedly" check. Dude looks at me, I start to get fidgety in my seat, every bit of phony body language I have is screaming that I hate that 3rd diamond. The fool bites and in between the words "all" and "in" as he's pushing chips I say "call" and flip over my nut flush.
| | So now that I'm up, I naturally have to go play in the tournament for a little less than what I'd just won. Alas that didn't go well. I actually got cards but I couldn't get ANY action. The good news was that I was stealing a few pots having created a very tight table image, I'm telling you when I bet out anything 3X the blinds I never got any callers. But when I had about 2300 in chips and blinds were 200/400 I had wired ducks and decided to take my shot, ran into wired Qs. Matt was out quicker than I was, I believe he flopped bottom 2 pair and ran into top set.
| | So back to the no-limit cash game. And about 10 hands in, again I hit a monster. Q-9 hearts, flop comes A-10-rag, two hearts including the A. Someone bets out $20, me and someone else call. Turn is 10h, I've got a huge flush. Again a bet, call, I come over the top all in. Original bettor gets away, but other guy calls and flips over K-7 hearts. OUCH. That was enough for me, I called it a night and went back to the room to type this up and go to sleep. | | Post a comment |
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