I thought I'd go ahead and open this thread a bit earlier than what I had originally planned since I've got a couple of hours to kill before Sam and I fetch jesse8888 from the airport. He was gracious enough to accept my invitation to Scottsdale and I'm hoping that he'll yield to my insistence that he contribute to this trip report. I can assure you that his particpation will make this worth reading.

This is a sentinel trip for me. It's the first time I've gone pokering without the wife. I'm also making the trip "under duress." Well, that's kinda misleading because she's the one under duress at my having done so... but I couldn't help it that her son had a different Spring Break than my son and my boy said that Scottsdale and Phoenix were "like the Skatebord Capitols of the US" and being the good Dad that I am I'd have felt bad if I didn't take him where he wanted to go. After all, it's his Spring Break.

We got here Saturday afternoon and I've posted a few snippets in this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...-lc-nc-749566/

beginning about post #59. I'll recount- and likely embellish- those events in this TR so there's no real reason to visit the other thread unless you're just killin' time like I am right now.

I will tell you that it's been great renewing my friendships with Howard Beale, that_pope and Desert Cat; although tbh, I was a lil dissapointed in DC when he invited me to dinner on Saturday, then uninvited me ten minutes later. His excuse had something to do with his prospect of getting laid later than night, but I'll let him defend himself when I start on this TR in earnest.

I gotta jump in the shower now, but I'll be back.

To the tune of Hank Williams Monday Night Football intro...

Are you ready some for some TR?

Awaiting the first installment with eager interest doc, you never fail to deliver in these.
Run goot!

Leo, your pigeon has arrived. We are taxi'ing to the gate as I peck these very words. I wonder if I'll get to put my stuff in the room before we start drinking at CAZ.....only time will tell.

I will be living most of the trip report from behind the computer screen like most others, with my only appearances a Saturday afternoon session and our planned dinner. Damn job.

[ ] bros before hos

Definitely saw a ferrari at in n out.

Hand 1:

Leo opens utg I show great restraint and fold the 97cc. Lagromaniac 3 balls old man calls 3 on the chin in the SB BB folds Leo caps (whole range I bet) both call.

T93cc

I curse my restraint while Leo bets and both call

6r

I curse again as BB checks, lagro calls, THEN Leo bets. SB also calls

9r

one more curse from me Leo bets lagro calls SB tank folds.

Leo smiles. This I bad I know instantly. He declares "no pair" And tables the nut no pair sooted (diamonds no less)

"2 pair" declares lagromaniac. 32 sooted is produced.

SB mutteres "I folded the winner". Leo smiles still.

You can't win if you're not in, just sayin'.

Nice meeting you and if this lagtastic 8-16 works out I can join you guys.

See what SoCal has done to you?? You woulda never folded that up here!

I don't think taking my wife to Fascinations Adult Clothing and Toy Store was an excuse, more like a triumphant detour.

And since I did it again to you tonight, this time I'll explain with pictures...

You've really got to know DC to appreciate the hilarity of his posts.

i play at the caz all the time and i have no idea who any of you are and what any of you guys are talking about in this thread.

If you're the friendly go-along/get-along type and want to say hi, at least to me, drop me a pm! And what is going on is a TR by one of the LHE forum's favorite posters with input from his buds.

Not everyone at CAZ is as friendly as me.

That's because they play limit and the only limit you understand is the limit of how many grenades you can carry around in COD you fish

Mark

For those of you that don't want to venture into the midstakes limit LC thread, I'll tell you that DC called about five o'clock offering to pick jesse and me up for dinner. I told him that we were just about to get seated in our game and that I'd call him back in a couple of hours after talking to Howard (who was on his way to CAZ) and discussing possible dinner plans with jesse. He said that'd be fine.

He called back first... in panic mode after cutting his finger while trying to slice an apple for his kid. He's distraught that it won't stop bleeding. The two quotes below are excerpted from the ms LC thread. Surf doc, a fellow ER physician and former poker coach of mine, is "admonishing" DC to man-up and stop acting.. well, vaginally.

Jesse and I are playing the limited hold them at CAZ. He's in the 9 and I'm in the 7 with some surly fuq in the 8 that won't swap seats with either of us. I had split the free drink tix with jesse that DC had given me Saturday evening and by the time my phone rings, jesse and I have become paying customers as far as libations are concerned. It's DC.

Him (clearly agitated and on the brink of emotional melt-down): "Leo, I've sliced the **** out of my finger while cutting an apple for my kid and it won't stop bleeding and I'm hemorrhaging blood all over the place and I've even got two bandaids on it and my wife won't be for home for like another hour so do you think I'll bleed to death before she gets home?"

Before telling you what I told him, is there any reply I could have made that wouldn't have sounded "disinterested" to my near-hystrionic friend? I mean I coulda offered to call 911 for him after providing step-by-step tourniquet instructions that likely woulda resulted in the loss of his finger had he applied the damn thing, but I decided to remain calm.

Me: "Where did you cut your finger?"

Him: "I sliced the end of it off." He reiterates the copious blood loss... four more times.

Me: "You've got to apply direct pressure to the wound."

Him (interrupting me): "I've done that with two bandaids but the blood just keeps spurting out."

I was about to tell him to take two Xanax and a belt of Jack Daniels, then call me in the morning; but, then I got to thinkin' about how terrified his kids musta been watchin' their Daddy stave off exanguination so I didn't tell him to do that either.

Me: "DC, you gotta apply pressure to the damn thing." Long pause and I fear I'm not getting thru here. "Tell ya what, get yerself a baggie, put a lil ice in it, wrap it in paper towel or something and put direct pressure on it. That'll stop the bleeding."

TBH, I had a fleeting, perverse inclination to tell him that "all bleeding eventually stops", but, once again, I exercise restraint.

Him (I sensed a gradual calming): "Are you sure I won't bleed to death before my wife gets home?"

Me: "Trust me, I'm a doctor."

A little while later, my phone rings with one of those wierd tones indicating something other than a human voice. Boc4life and TPFKA Strictly Strategy have now joined jesse and me and are standing right behind us. I opened the phone, pushed a couple of buttons and a bewildering, slightly out of focus, lil picture appears. I stare at it a few seconds, turn the phone 90 degrees, then 180, then cant it obliquely, then it dawns on me that it's probably DC's finger. I pass the phone around to my pals for visual confirmation that this is, in fact, a picture of a finger and that there appears to be a trivially small piece of skin missing from the tip of it.

We reach a consensus about the finger.

I'm left wondering what he'd do if he really got hurt.

ETA: I apologize for this not being a formal entry into our TR, but I felt DC's post should not have gone unanswered. I'll endeavor to get back into my normal TR routine soon.

When are we having our dinner extravaganza, or did you guys go last night without me

It's etched in stone for Wednesday evening. I would have called you if we went last night, but I figured we'd have been too late after taking DC to a Level III trauma center to get his boo-boo properly attended.

You learn something every day, especially if you're not careful. So far in less than 24 hours in Scottsdale I have learned:

1. It really is a dry heat. So dry in fact that my face is falling off. I feel like Nick Cage.

2. People with Ferraris are just like me, in that they also crave double doubles and animal style fries. This is likely where the similarities end but on the bright side it does mean I'm one step closer to owning a Ferrari than I previously thought.

3. Howard Beale is an exceptional gentleman, calling a player at our table a "tricky" lag. The phrase "value missing calldown monkey who 3 bets with 3 high" would have been more accurate. But Howard did not deem it fit to disparage the man. Later categorizations of the man from various other two plus two-ers in attendance were a great deal more candid.

4. $5 black jack is an easy game so long as leo doc sweats you. 15 against an 8? Pull the 6 obviously. EZ game.

5. $5 black jack is rigged when leo is on the phone. Pocket pictures against a 6? You've got yourself a Chinese movie; no good! Thank heavens leo could smoke at the table or I'd have been in big trouble.

6. There could actually be an extra sun in the sky here, some sort of giant bonfire like object placed in geosynchronous orbit above Phoenix. It's that sunny. I'll investigate further today but don't keep high hopes, as so far I've been unable to raise my eyes more than 5 degrees past horizontal.

7. The iPad is awesome, but the apple store treats hundred dollar bills like they are radioactive. Leo bought his boy a fire wire cable and attempted to pay for it with a single fun ticket. Ten minutes later he had seventy some dollars in change, mostly in fives and tens, which had taken two escalations up the managerial chain of command to acquire.

8. There are two (2) levels of management at the apple store.

So many lies, to respond to them all would take pages. I will say that the memory of someone burning through that many fun tickets cannot be trusted, and neither can the veracity of someone posting under the influence of excessive happy fun tix.

OMG now this thread is getting good. Loving the DC story, since I can put a face/personality to the action. hahaha so good

Mark

fyp

Nice posts, wish I was there. Send postcards. See you guys in Vegas in July.

Your ears musta been burnin'. We were just talkin' about you and lamenting your conspicuous absence... except at the table.

You know it just occurred to me that nobody has asked the obvious question:

"How did DC type all that text with his index finger spurting blood?"