The downside of the plan, however, is that I'd probably not be able to resist the tractor-beam pull of the poker room and I'd get sucked in. It worked out for me last weekend, as I made a couple hundred bucks in the process and picked up another half-shift, but I really didn't want to tempt fate again.
Luckily, just as I was starting to stir early in the afternoon, my buddy A.C. sent me a text message, asking if I wanted to play in the Friday night tourney over at Joker's Wild. Yep, that sounded like a good plan, and it kept me from stopping by work on my day off. Well, I *still* wanted to hit the sports book, but I figured I'd do it later in the evening after the tournament, as all the Station books are open until 2:00 am on weekends now that football season is here.
So I showered, shaved, got dressed and headed out to Boulder Highway, getting to Joker's about an hour and a half before the tourney started. They've got a pretty good one going on Friday and Saturday nights--$38 gets you $6000 in chips, with no re-buys or add-ons. And if you register at least an hour early, you get an extra $500 in chips. That's why I was there at 5:00 pm for a 6:30 tournament.
A.C. showed up a few minutes later, and once we got registered, we headed over to the sports book to kill some time. It seems that Joker's Wild is part of the Coast Casinos family, and on some of their parlay and teaser cards, they have slightly better odds than Stations offers. So I said the hell with it, and opted to just do my betting there, since I was already in the neighborhood.
The first thing we did was order some grub at the snack bar. To be perfectly honest, for being kind of a dive, JW has a fairly decent snack bar. We got a couple of orders of buffalo chicken fingers, a soft pretzel, and a couple of Cokes, then sat down with a pile of betting sheets from the sports book.
My intention was to just do my normal 5-team college parlay ticket, and maybe just look at some NFL action, but I guess I got carried away. Eddie B had sent me some good 'trending' information to consider, and A.C. loves the teaser cards, and I had a few extra bucks in my pocket, so I dove head-first into the enticing waters of the sucker-bet pool.
This is what I ended up with on four different tickets:
You can clickie on them for full-sized readability, but basically, it's just a bunch of fun picks that have a slim-to-none chance of hitting, but still make for a fun weekend in front of the TV.
As far as the tournament went, I was doing pretty damn well--I got pocket Kings twice, and not only did I get action on them, but they held up both times. I was the chip leader at my table for the first hour or so, but then when it got down to two tables, I donked off a few thousand on second-best hands. Once the blinds started getting ridiculous, I went all in with pocket nines. A.C., that rat bastard, called me with Ace-King, and caught a King on the flop, knocking me out in about 17th place. And then he had the nerve to bum a dollar off of me so he could tip the cocktail waitress for the next round. Like I said, rat bastard. Heh.
But still, we had a good time. He managed to take my chips to the final table, but didn't cash. I stuck around to watch, but after that, I decided to call it a night. I knew that if I were to stay out and play, I'd probably spend a bunch of money and be pissed if I lost. So instead of getting into a cash game, I just came on home.
I'm in for the night, and I'm hoping the phone doesn't ring. Of course I'd be happy to work if they called, but right now, I'm content to just hang out and chill, and maybe go to bed early.
Mikey
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