Well, ok, maybe it's not totally Vegas style--I mean, it's like 11:15 at night and I'm already home. But after last weekend, I could use a whole month's worth of early nights--I'm still worn out from last weekend's 'September Madness' buffoonery, and I've been draggin' ass ever since.
Anyhow, my Friday didn't get started until late in the afternoon. After I got out of work early in the morning, I was too tired to even go have breakfast with my friends. Oh, there was talk of hanging out and playing some poker, then maybe heading over to Sam's Town and spending a few bucks on the supposed outrageously good odds on their super-parlay cards, but in the end, my ass was just too worn out and I came straight home and went to bed. I cannot rage like I used to. Seriously, it's taken almost five days to recover from that three-day bender.
So I slept like a rock until 2:30 in the afternoon, then shuffled off to the living room just to say that I got out of bed. I farted around for a bit, then hopped in the shower a couple hours later. I left the house at five, stopped at the bank, and then headed over to Joker's Wild. My buddy AC and I planned to play in their 6:30 tournament again.
I got there early enough to secure a couple of seats, then I ambled over to the sports book to have a peek at their lines and perhaps have a beer or two. Turns out that Stations had better lines for the games I wanted to bet on, so I just sat down to watch some baseball until AC showed up. No waitress ever came near me, and I dozed off for a couple of minutes. AC did a couple of bets, but I was still feeling a little bit out of it, so I just went to the snack bar and got some coffee.
As far as the tournament went, I was doing pretty well, but I had Aces-up cracked twice. There were forty players, and I went out in a blaze of glory with Ace-Eight of diamonds losing to Ace-Nine offsuit. Neither of us improved, and there were no mustache cards on the board, so I didn't even get to chop. Out of forty players, I went out in 12th place. Sadly, they don't pay much for moral victories.
AC had busted out long before I did, and he'd already gone home by the time I got knocked out, so I was flying solo by then. I still needed to get my picks in, and I wanted to play some poker--other than that silly 2-4 spread game they have there at JW--so I headed over to Sunset Station.
I parked on the roof of the parking garage, just because it was a nice night out and the view up there is pretty cool. As I was getting on the elevator, a young couple joined me. They wanted to make conversation, and the guy asked me if I was staying there at the hotel.
No, I just stopped by to make a few football bets and play some poker.
"Really? What do you play?", he asked.
Either 4-8 or 1-2 no limit, whatever is available..., I told him.
"Oh, not me--I'm more of a hold-em man myself."
Pause.
WTF?
Clearly you are, I thought to myself for a split second before just nodding. Whatever dude. I guess he still had to work on impressing his lady friend.
Luckily the elevator spat us out before he made an even bigger fool of himself, and I headed off to the sports book. I did an eight-team teaser for college, and a five-team parlay for the NFL on Sunday. I spent twenty bucks on some longshots, but it makes the games more fun to watch.
I got back over to the poker room and put my name on the waiting list (it was busy as hell in there). The waitress was kind enough to bring me an Amber Bock, and I killed time talking to a couple of my friends who had showed up ahead of me.
I didn't have to wait too long for a seat, and although I started out slowly, I had some really bad opponents, and I started to chip up. I only suffered one bad suckout--a guy called a preflop raise and all my pushing from under the gun with 3-5 offsuit, and made an inside straight on the river, crushing my set of Jacks. That hand damn near put me over the edge, but I popped him again later, knowing he'd call me all the way down with any draw or any pair.
Hell, I turned the nut flush on one hand, he bet out, I raised, and he re-raised me. Gotta love that, especially with two other callers in the hand, and the river came a useless Ace that improved somebody, so I raked a very nice pot.
After about two and half hours, I'd more than doubled up, so I figured it was time to call it a night and not give the fickle poker gods a chance to cut my chip stack back down. I stopped to talk to a couple of other poker buddies on the way out, but then, it was straight back here to the bachelor pad.
I'm wide awake now, so I'm thinking that my system is fully recovered. I'll start writing my experiences from last weekend--and I've got lots of pictures, too--and that should be up by Monday, unless I get called into work again this weekend.
Until then, y'all have a great weekend!
Mikey
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