Outsourced Trip Report (WPBT Trip Report Pt 3)
Thursday, December 17, 2009
When we last left our hero, he was clutching onto his bedspread wondering when the bed would stop spinning. As we join him again, he is suddenly awake, 7:30am in the morning, Vegas time, or 10:30am in NY (i.e., reality time).
Jordan woke from his bed surprised to find that somehow in the course of the evening, he had worked his way under the covers. More accurately, he had worked his way underneath the bedspread, which as any good germaphobe knows is ground zero for uncleaned jizz stains and other sordid toxic spills. Jordan rolled out of his bed and dragged himself into the bathroom. Finding no identifiable bruises from the other night, he popped a Motrin and decided that the best cure for his queasy stomach was some food.
He had remembered a text message late at night before he fell asleep. It came from Kat and read, “Where are you? I’m so pissed right now, I’m going to punch somebody!” His feeble attempt at a response last night simply read, “Where are you?”, but he had gotten no response. Either Kat was asleep, in jail, or both. He had hoped for the former.
Jordan lay in bed hoping to get over his rocking hangover. He turned on his iTouch and began to watch a movie until it suddenly froze. SHIT! The iTouch was Jordan’s only real entertainment with him, so the flight home was going to suck without some help. He tried all of the various tricks but nothing worked, so he left the room in search of food with his iTouch and USB plug just in case.
It was too early to call anyone, so Jordan walked the casino floor stopping by the various eateries to see if anything piqued his interest. He came across an elevator in the middle of the casino floor with two signs above it. The first said “Hash House” and featured ideal food; the second said “conference rooms,” which was a little less appealing.
He entered the elevator and hit the button for 4, the number indicated on the sign above the elevator. The elevator moved before making a grinding noise, as though it would suddenly stop and then hit free fall any minute. When the doors opened, Jordan was happy to see he was still alive, but the hallway showed only conference rooms. Breakfast fail. On the way down the elevator, Jordan held tightly to the railing…just in case.
Breakfast ended up being a bagel and cream cheese from a little dinette place near Jordan’s room tower. After breakfast, Jordan walked the casino floor, hoping to find a poker game at the IP. Third try, third fail. The room was desolate. Instead, he found a Pai Gow table, where he grinded another $50 win before moving on to craps, -$97. There went all that hard Pai Gow work.
Eventually, Jordan received a text from CK and F-train, who planned to head for brunch at the apparently existent Hash House. “Do you or F-Train have a laptop?” “Yes.” “I’ll be right up.”
Jordan arrived at CK and F-Train’s room with his iTouch ready to go. One simple plug into F-Train’s laptop and it was back to normal. God bless that F-Train. Once everyone was ready, the three left the room and headed out to brunch. The destination was the elusive Hash House.
With his two shirrpas, Jordan was finally able to find the only passable restaurant in the IP. He, F-Train and CK met Alceste of IHadOuts fame there, completing the NY foursome. Food was eaten. Jordan opted for the stuffed burger, which was incredibly large. He barely finished half. The rest of the table was filled with equally huge portions.
Satiated, the crew left brunch. Jordan ran to his room to suit up for the private blogger tournament scheduled for 20 minutes at Caesars, across the street. Once dressed, he ran through the IP in the hopes that he would make the tournament on time.
Success! Jordan arrived at the Caesars poker room with time to spare. He paid the $100 and found his seat at table 33, seat 3. He already had a set.
Jordan’s table was a good one, if for nothing else than the company. He won’t try to name everyone, especially since the table dynamics kept changing, but to his immediate right was Lightning36 (probably one of the friendliest and most likable bloggers Jordan has met), along with StB, Poker Peaker, Schaubs, Carmen’s mom, and a bunch of other blogger/players/ne’er-do-wells.
Jordan had a good time at the tournament, getting KK in his first hand, good for 200 chips in profit. More importantly, he was hamming it up. It was one of the rare occasions that he knew that his antics would be met with appreciation, instead of violence. It’s not easy to call your opponent a donkey, but when the person knows that the source is a showboating self-important blogger like Jordan, the insults go down a lot easier.
Jordan tangled several times with Carmen’s mom specifically. Always the gentleman, he even showed her a courtesy when she was in the SB and called the BB even though Jordan had raised. The dealer announced that she could fold, but had to leave the full BB in the pot. Jordan sent it back. No harm no fowl, especially since he ended up felting Mrs. Carmen’s Mom a couple of orbits later.
By the 300/600 level, though, Jordan had been all over the place. He was up over 10k for a while, but eventually settled in to about 6k when the first break occurred. Meanwhile, Jordan’s Luckbox Team Challenge teammates, Waffles and Dr. Chako, were in better shape with about 7k and 15k or more, respectively. A quick double-up, though, with god-knows-what and Jordan had some breathing room.
“Massages!” Jordan’s ears perked up. This group of bloggers was a ragtag bunch, but it was also a generous bunch, and since landing in Vegas, Jordan had his share of freebies at the hands (and wallets) of his blogger compatriots. Now, it was his turn to give a little back. He approached the masseuse with a $20 ready to go. “See that guy over there?” He pointed to his teammate, Woffles. “Give him the best 10 minutes of his life.” He handed over the $20 and called out to Woffles, “Hey Woffles, I got a gift for you.” Woffles turned around and at the thought of physical contact with an actual female, winced. Jordan whispered to the masseuse, “If he doesn’t want it, you can keep the $20.” After all, Jordan wasn’t going to force the girl on Woffles or take his money back.
As Jordan returned to the table, Woffle’s massage started. Jordan turned to his tablemates and shared, “I’m just helping Woffles get used to paying for a woman to touch him.” Always the thoughtful gift-giver, Jordan went back to poker with a renewed sense of purpose.
Things went quiet for a while. Jordan was card dead, holding only KK that one time on the first hand and JJ one time as well. That was it for pocket pairs, but there may have been one AK as well. No AQ though.
Jordan’s table broke and he was moved to his final table for the day. There were still five or so tables, but Jordan tightened up due to his cards and the escalating blinds, and eventually found himself to be a shortstack at a table of shortstacks. Jordan used his Short Stack Specialist skills as best he could, but card deadedness is card deadedness, and he spent most of his time folding and acting the fool. He even took out his bandanna, tied it around his face like a ye ole bank robber, threw on the hood and went into super-tell-lockdown, more as a goof since there wasn’t much tells to be seen in a shorties all-in.
Jordan got so low at one point that he had about 2 BB. UTG+1, he pushed with T6h. After all, there were enough antes out there and at least with T6h, he hoped to have outs. It amazingly folded to the BB, a bald Asian gentleman who our humble narrator believes to have been one of Astin’s crew. The bald Asian considered what to do. Jordan was shocked. It was maybe 1 BB more, and with all the antes, the bald Asian was getting amazing odds…until he folded. Incredible! Jordan is just that good.
Jordan was able to double up once with QJ over AK all-in preflop, but eventually the blinds caught up with him. He began pushing blind, since his cards were so bad that looking would only cause him to freeze up. It worked once or twice, but eventually, F-Train called with A5d. Jordan showed 67o. The flop had a 5. The turn had another. Jordan was out of the tournament with two tables left in 14th place, 4 spots out of the money. It was technically a Lemon(!) moment, but it felt like lemonade.
Jordan left the table and wandered around for a bit. He finally decided that he should play more poker. But he was at Caesars, home of the stupid 1/3 game. Should he give it one more go?
Next time on The Neverending Trip Report: Jordan plays poker…but where? Sports bets are placed…but on whom? Jordan turns in for an early night…or does he? Find out all this and more, next time on High on Poker!
Until next time, make mine poker!
posted by Jordan @ 10:59 AM,
