Lost Weekend Pt. 1 (AC Trip Report)
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The weekend trip to AC started off like any other. Roose came earlier than expected and I was left scrambling to change from my work clothes into my civvies. I headed out, hopped in his car around 3pm, and hit the road. Along the way, we listened primarily to Howard Stern, someone who I have listened to since I was all of 12 years old. Traffic was relatively light once we got out of NYC, and we made it to AC by 5:30.
We checked in to AC and I requested a room in the Orleans Tower, as opposed to the Bourbon Tower. From what I remembered from last time, construction was still ongoing in the brand new Bourbon Tower, and I thought I was being clever by avoiding the morning construction noise. The Orleans rooms aren't bad, but in hindsight, I plan to change it up next time. According to Karol, the Bourbon Tower rooms are fantastic, akin to the much more pricey Borgata rooms. Noise is a beyotch, but since she didn't have a problem when she stayed there, I figured I could make it work. After all, I was sharing a room with Roose, the human bandsaw.
I should mention, we were 30 minutes outside NYC when Roose told me that we had another roommate. I love Roose like a brother. Our fathers knew each other since they were kids and when they introduced our mothers to each other, they took to each other immediately as well. So, we grew up together since we were practically fetuses. Growing up with someone like that, there is a natural bond, sometimes one that is even stronger than blood. I say this as a precursor to the following statements about Roose. Roose sometimes is clueless when it comes to invites. I had no problem, ostensibly, with inviting his friend (and mine through Roose) Greg to join us. He's a fun guy and loves poker. Greg was going to come with one of his friends, so it would be four of us in a room, something that I am also able to adjust to. But, well, it would've been nice to have been involved in the invite. I mean, it was sorta my room. And Roose essentially offered our room up for free. Silly Roose! At least he arranged it so I had my own bed. In the end, it all worked out though. Greg stuck around the entire trip and paid for brunch and some odds and ends, his buddy lost his $300 budget the first night and left before sleeping, and we all had a good time. (As an aside, there is a much better story about Roose inviting someone without thinking it through. Randy Hole's birthday party this year was a large surprise affair thrown by his family. Roose forwarded me an e-vite, and I RSVP'ed that wifey Kim and I would come. There was just one problem -- we were not invited! Long story short, we crashed the party anyway).
So, we get to the room and dump our stuff off. I arranged for a key to be left for Greg, so Roose and I decided to head to Caesars after dinner at the Mansion Cafe to get our registration done.
The line at Caesars for registration was about 10 people deep. Hoyazo touched on this in his blog, but I repeat it here: the WSOP has the worst planning. First you wait on a line to register. Then you go to another line to pay. I mean, come on, folks. Can't we just do it all in one place. Whatever!
We skipped the temptation of a satellite, mostly because of the math involved. The satellite is $38+12, and the top spot gets a buy-in to the $340 event and $40 in cash (at least that was how it was for Harrah's WSOP Circuit). So, there is a 1/10 chance of getting into the tournament for $10 ($50 offset by the $40 cash that comes with 1st place) and a 9/10 chance to essentially pay $390 ($50 for satellite and $340 when I buy in directly). Ergo, fuck it. I'll just buy in.
So we did. We thought about playing something while at Caesars, but to be frank, Caesars sucks. It looks nice, but their table games are more expensive and their poker room isn't too great. It's on the casino floor off to the side, but still open to the ding and bells of the nearby slots. We hopped in Roose's car and headed back to Showboat. On our walk back to our room, Roose pointed out something. "Dude, we've been here for hours and we haven't gambled on anything yet." It struck me too. I guess we were maturing in our old age. Or perhaps it was the fact that we saw the WSOP Circuit as the main focus and all other gambling was merely a time killer. Or perhaps it was the fact that we were gambling a whole lot, but only prop bets. And for the record, I went 0 for 6 on props this weekend.
We finally decided it was time to play and headed to the poker room. I saw Karol right away and stopped by to say hi. She was in a $100 tournament and I contemplated joining late, but ultimately decided against it. Alceste was also in the tournament and I got to his table just in time to see his set of 4s cracked by some donkey's Q3h rivering a flush. Dawn was in a cash game, due in large part to the fact that she was using a fake i.d., so I decided to grab some chips for some 1/2 NL.
Hmm...no real notes here folks. The truth is, it was a horrible session for me. I couldn't get anything going. There were a lot of limpers at our table, and everyone was fairly well versed in the game. The result was a tight-ish game. I bluffed off over $75 in one hand when my opponent slowplayed quad 5s. At showdown, he showed down first and I mucked quickly. It is one of my major leaks, betting $25 on a flop and then $50 on the turn. I always think the 50 will scare my opponent, but most often they just call and I'm left to check the river and lose in shame. At least I've identified the leak. Now, to plug it.
The table was so boring, I decided to change it up. A seat opened at Dawn's table and I took it. She was on my immediate left, and Alceste was on my right. I proceeded to play fairly tight and won back a little of my money. Finally, I realized that I was just plain bored. That's no way to poker, so I racked up and left the room with Roose. I was down $125, which overall wasn't bad considering my play.
If memory serves, Roose and I headed to Pai Gow, but the tables were full. In fact, they were full all fucking weekend. I convinced him to play some Chinese Poker and we headed upstairs. Somewhere in there, Greg and his friend showed up. I lent Greg $340 for the Caesars buy-in and sent him on his way, assuming that it would be too busy the next day. When he came back, Roose and I were playing Rummy 500. We hung out and did little else, eventually deciding that even though it was only 2am, we ought to get some sleep before the big game.
More to come...
posted by Jordan @ 2:14 PM,
1 Comments:
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At 7:01 PM,
said...
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Sunday March 25th at 8pm GMT
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regards (lurker)
dD
