The story of "The Home Game" - TL;DR
12-27-2016
, 07:13 PM
2012 - The Year of Kelly
After that night, Kelly was very keen on me spending more time down there on her farm. She basically worked six days a week dawn till dusk, and she couldn't really travel up to my place. I started racking up serious miles in the Lexus and to add to that, it was my only vehicle. I still had a plant nursery on an island about 45 minutes from her place and tried trading vehicles with her, my sister, etc. to try to run a nursery with a real truck. We celebrated New Years at her house and I would say after that, she was very serious about me staying there. I taught her how to shoot and she was slinging around a snub .38 in no time.
About a week after New Years', I drove into my nursery to find a lock on the front gate. The front gate was never locked, I had 24/7 access to the 80 acre property of which I leased 2 acres. My landlord was a huge landowner in the county and was a doctor who was apparently not as financially solvent as I had thought. There was a post on the property that said this parcel was in foreclosure, and he had failed to tell me about it at all. He said all was good and they were upgrading the well after it blew out and flooded all the ditches. Sure enough, rich or poor, I was getting ****ed again and I wasn't just going to leave my plants behind. There was 30-40K in plants retail sitting on the property as well as structures I had built. I called Kelly and Ken to ask them for help, and within a matter of hours I had two trucks with trailers ready to move plants out. There was a property appraiser there who had asked me what I was doing on site. He seemed like a timid guy who was actually pretty nice, but I told him that I had subleased land from the previous owner and 4 years of hard work was in that nursery. He said if I got it out fast and without incident he wouldn't say anything, and I thanked him. The truth is I didn't care about his blessing, I would have happily gotten arrested over trying to save my livelihood.
The fact that Kelly was willing to drop everything and come help showed she clearly respected my passion. The truth was I had given up really trying to build a nursery - this was the 3rd time I would have to move as a result of a landlord being a dick. She let me move a lot of the plants I wanted to sell immediately to her farm, and Ken took the rest to Miami to grow up. I built a quick shadehouse at her place next to the goats and was running that part time. The truth was I was really ready to just grind out poker in the area. I still kept in the plant world through brokering, and this is when I bought the kidnapper van to move the plants around. It was a low overhead and good profit margin, and usually a cash business. I also traded in the Lexus for a Hyundai Veloster - more economical and newer, plus the money was good in poker.
Immokalee was not a big poker room, but it had its advantages. It was a small town that had a lot of tourists from the coastal areas such as Naples, and it had regulars, but they were more like a conglomeration off odd characters that just wanted to gamble, country style. Biker gangs would roll through town on their way to Miami to have some fun and get their gamble on. The locals in there were mostly drug dealers that didn't care about the money, if they hit top pair they were getting it in. The great part was there were no proish types there, but then again it was just 1 or 2 tables running, so there was no incentive for pro types to come here. That was until Iceman rolled in. Iceman was in his mid-20s, red balding hair, and very quiet. When he first sat down with his backpack and pulled out beats, bought in for the max, I saw I had met some competition. Our first hand I can remember was I had K
10 in the BB and he had raised in the CO to 12, and after a caller I flatted and we saw a K
8
3 flop. I checked and he bet out 25 and I called. A 3turn went check/check, and a 3 river rolled off. I checked, feeling he would bet all bluffs and he fired out 110. It was an over pot bet and I just felt that there was very little he would bet for value like this, so I called after about 15 seconds and he rolled over 99 for a pair turned into a bluff (his words), and I take a decent sized pot at 1/2.
About 30 minutes later, the game broke which it usually did before a tournament and he bummed a cigarette off me.
"That was a nice move with the overpot bet, I really have to have a king or better there to even consider a call." I was trying to make new friends in the area, and giving him credit for good effort was the best I could come up with.
"I figured if anyone might've folded a king there, it would have been you. One thing I have learned in my years playing poker is never bluff the bad guys." It turned out Iceman had left a managerial job at Target to pursue playing poker for a living, but told me he wasn't rolled well for 2/5. He said he was ashamed to play 1/2 at the Naples track, so he came here to basically do the same thing I did - play in an untapped market. We garnered a mutual respect over the next few weeks, and finally we would meet up and carpool to Naples regularly. In Naples, PLO had started to really take off and I played the 1-2 game and got him to play as well. He had been more of a NL and Stud player, but was eager to learn more about PLO since it was still a new game in the live poker scene. We would discuss PLO and NL and swap some game theory, and I was spending more time in the cardroom than I was in the nursery.
Kelly and I had our first falling out in the late spring after I refused to go to the gym anymore with her friends, then out to dinner and a movie that was becoming a 3 time a week ordeal. It was boring exercising with her friends - honestly they reminded me of my college friends, always talking about idealism and putting reality on the backburner. To add to this, I was spending 3 days a week up in the Sarasota area at my place that my mom was renting to me, and she thought I was cheating on her with Casey. The truth was I just wanted to be closer to some friends and didn't want to lose touch. It was starting to get into the 90s everyday out there on the farm and I had no interest in working out in the sun anymore - I had been jaded by all the moves I had to make and I didn't have enough room to run a full on nursery.
One night I had come home from Immokalee after a session, and had picked up Popeye's on the way home. I had never had Popeye's food before I knew Kelly and I went there after a night of playing realizing I had no food at home and could either get gas station food in Immokalee, McDonalds, or try something new. These were usually situated in shadier areas of town so I would just pass them by if I saw them. I remember eating it on her couch and I fell asleep watching TV. I woke up to one of the dogs licking and gently nibbling a biscuit out of my greasy hands and the others took care of the rest of the fried chicken. Kelly was pissed and she was yelling but I was way too tired to listen to what she was saying. It was early and getting up at that time was just not going to happen.
"I can't believe you went to POPEYE'S!" She exclaimed, "Now the dogs are going to choke on the bones!"
"It was DELICIOUS!" I told her, as well as that I had no regrets and it was probably going to happen again. She told me she didn't want me up until 2:15 in the morning eating garbage and being lazy all day. To her, 2:15 was the devil's time and the early bird gets the worm. I finally had woken up around 11 and when I walked outside it was already in the 90s and humid. **** this, the summers here were brutal off the coast, with the highs around 96 and the lows in the upper 70s. Add to that torrential downpours that made me almost lose my Veloster a few times to the roads that turned into rivers. I realized I didn't want to do the plant nursery in a half ass plot of land with someone trying to regulate me. A week later she came to me with a proposition to go to couples therapy, and I told her I didn't want to be a couple anymore. She didn't take that well, and I ended up going back up to Sarasota for a few months and let the plants just grow without me there. I would still come down and spend the night at the house and hang out with her, but we were just friends for now.
In the meantime, I was starting to find out where else on the West Coast I could play PLO. I went to Hard Rock in Tampa to find a 1/2/5 game and a 2/5/10 game running sometimes, a 1/2/5 game in Sarasota, and would still play the games down in Naples. At the time, Tim had started his own free poker league in the area and I had started to hang around and help him with running it. This was really where I first started running into Sally. I had seen here at these things for about 6 months, but after a spring finals tournament, she started to play in a small home game on the southside of town. Like most of the players there, she was super passive-weak and I abused her well in those cash games - she hated me for the way I played. A few weeks later, I was hanging out at a bar with some of the guys that ran the league, and a friend who I hadn't seen in 5 years' mother was hanging out there and left her small group of friends to talk to me. We both ended up getting pretty drunk and she told me that I should come back to see the place now that he wasn't around. I ended up banging her, she was in her mid-40s and decent looking for her age, but in the morning it was just really awkward, and I actually missed being down on the farm.
I ended up going back down there after Kelly and I took a business trip to Pensacola. It was over 10 hours from her place to Perdido Key, where I rented a hotel and sat while 13 inches of rain fell. I got out of there as soon as I could, and when we got back to her farm, things got hot and heavy. I really thought this was who I wanted to be with, and took interest in the nursery once again. The late summer and early fall were good, but finally we started fighting about my poker ways, my lethargicness which she attributed to multiple drugs including xanax and vicodin, and she wanted me to stop smoking. I ended up buying a vape pen and hid the pills and she seemed okay for a bit until she caught me again. In the end, I just didn't want to change for her - I cared more about going to the track, Hard Rock, and my friends back home. Finally, on New Year's Eve 2012, she said she wanted to go to the opera in Naples, but there was a big promo going on at one of the tracks and I went to play. She told me she was fine with going to the opera with one of her friends ($125 a ticket, lol) and I believed her.
I had showed up at the Naples track ready to brawl in the 2/5/10 PLO game. Midway through the night I was in MP and raised to 35 with a 1440 effective stack with K
KJ10 some middle-aged stoner just ahead of me potted it to 120 and I flatted, figuring I could flop well out of position. The flop was a beautiful KJ10 and I checked and he bet 250, which I flatted. It was so hard for him to have a piece of this board that didn't have me beat. I blocked all sets, but no straights or flushes. The turn was a beautiful J and when I checked he bet 600. This struck me as odd, because if he had a flush, he would check back, because that card made a ton of full houses and he is only going to be betting JJ, 1010, and J10. I really thought about him having AQ or Q9 in his range, it was very possible but I'm not folding kings full. He had committed himself with the 600, so I raised all in and he instantly called and tabled 89xx for two outs, and it didn't come. The $2400 pot dragged my way and I remember stacking the green chips to the tune of Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling". They closed early for the New Year, so I went with Iceman to Immokalee and we donked around at 1/2 for a while. His wife was up north with her family, so we brought in the New Year at the only cash game running in Collier County that night. I really felt like I had met the right person to talk NL and PLO hands with, and was on top of the world feeling like I was playing my A game, when really I was running well too, that always helps.
We parted ways at the corner of Route 82 and Corkscrew Road around 3am and he headed back to Fort Myers. I took Corkscrew down to the farm to see no lights on and pulled up into the driveway. Kelly's car was there, and I walked up to the big wraparound porch to see my suitcase with a note that said "GOODBYE". The door was locked, and I had no keys - we only locked the door when both of us were inside. I knocked on the window to our bedroom - no answer. I put the bag in the hatch of my car and checked - there was everything I owned in the house in that bag. **** it, this was over, there was nothing I could do, nor did I want to. I got back to my house around sunrise and fell asleep, and that was the last night I lived at Kelly's. Poker and school took precedence over plants at that point, and within a few months, I had sold off the nursery I had tried to rebuild at her place. It was time to move on, not just from her, but also into poker full time.
After that night, Kelly was very keen on me spending more time down there on her farm. She basically worked six days a week dawn till dusk, and she couldn't really travel up to my place. I started racking up serious miles in the Lexus and to add to that, it was my only vehicle. I still had a plant nursery on an island about 45 minutes from her place and tried trading vehicles with her, my sister, etc. to try to run a nursery with a real truck. We celebrated New Years at her house and I would say after that, she was very serious about me staying there. I taught her how to shoot and she was slinging around a snub .38 in no time.
About a week after New Years', I drove into my nursery to find a lock on the front gate. The front gate was never locked, I had 24/7 access to the 80 acre property of which I leased 2 acres. My landlord was a huge landowner in the county and was a doctor who was apparently not as financially solvent as I had thought. There was a post on the property that said this parcel was in foreclosure, and he had failed to tell me about it at all. He said all was good and they were upgrading the well after it blew out and flooded all the ditches. Sure enough, rich or poor, I was getting ****ed again and I wasn't just going to leave my plants behind. There was 30-40K in plants retail sitting on the property as well as structures I had built. I called Kelly and Ken to ask them for help, and within a matter of hours I had two trucks with trailers ready to move plants out. There was a property appraiser there who had asked me what I was doing on site. He seemed like a timid guy who was actually pretty nice, but I told him that I had subleased land from the previous owner and 4 years of hard work was in that nursery. He said if I got it out fast and without incident he wouldn't say anything, and I thanked him. The truth is I didn't care about his blessing, I would have happily gotten arrested over trying to save my livelihood.
The fact that Kelly was willing to drop everything and come help showed she clearly respected my passion. The truth was I had given up really trying to build a nursery - this was the 3rd time I would have to move as a result of a landlord being a dick. She let me move a lot of the plants I wanted to sell immediately to her farm, and Ken took the rest to Miami to grow up. I built a quick shadehouse at her place next to the goats and was running that part time. The truth was I was really ready to just grind out poker in the area. I still kept in the plant world through brokering, and this is when I bought the kidnapper van to move the plants around. It was a low overhead and good profit margin, and usually a cash business. I also traded in the Lexus for a Hyundai Veloster - more economical and newer, plus the money was good in poker.
Immokalee was not a big poker room, but it had its advantages. It was a small town that had a lot of tourists from the coastal areas such as Naples, and it had regulars, but they were more like a conglomeration off odd characters that just wanted to gamble, country style. Biker gangs would roll through town on their way to Miami to have some fun and get their gamble on. The locals in there were mostly drug dealers that didn't care about the money, if they hit top pair they were getting it in. The great part was there were no proish types there, but then again it was just 1 or 2 tables running, so there was no incentive for pro types to come here. That was until Iceman rolled in. Iceman was in his mid-20s, red balding hair, and very quiet. When he first sat down with his backpack and pulled out beats, bought in for the max, I saw I had met some competition. Our first hand I can remember was I had K
10 in the BB and he had raised in the CO to 12, and after a caller I flatted and we saw a K83 flop. I checked and he bet out 25 and I called. A 3turn went check/check, and a 3 river rolled off. I checked, feeling he would bet all bluffs and he fired out 110. It was an over pot bet and I just felt that there was very little he would bet for value like this, so I called after about 15 seconds and he rolled over 99 for a pair turned into a bluff (his words), and I take a decent sized pot at 1/2. About 30 minutes later, the game broke which it usually did before a tournament and he bummed a cigarette off me.
"That was a nice move with the overpot bet, I really have to have a king or better there to even consider a call." I was trying to make new friends in the area, and giving him credit for good effort was the best I could come up with.
"I figured if anyone might've folded a king there, it would have been you. One thing I have learned in my years playing poker is never bluff the bad guys." It turned out Iceman had left a managerial job at Target to pursue playing poker for a living, but told me he wasn't rolled well for 2/5. He said he was ashamed to play 1/2 at the Naples track, so he came here to basically do the same thing I did - play in an untapped market. We garnered a mutual respect over the next few weeks, and finally we would meet up and carpool to Naples regularly. In Naples, PLO had started to really take off and I played the 1-2 game and got him to play as well. He had been more of a NL and Stud player, but was eager to learn more about PLO since it was still a new game in the live poker scene. We would discuss PLO and NL and swap some game theory, and I was spending more time in the cardroom than I was in the nursery.
Kelly and I had our first falling out in the late spring after I refused to go to the gym anymore with her friends, then out to dinner and a movie that was becoming a 3 time a week ordeal. It was boring exercising with her friends - honestly they reminded me of my college friends, always talking about idealism and putting reality on the backburner. To add to this, I was spending 3 days a week up in the Sarasota area at my place that my mom was renting to me, and she thought I was cheating on her with Casey. The truth was I just wanted to be closer to some friends and didn't want to lose touch. It was starting to get into the 90s everyday out there on the farm and I had no interest in working out in the sun anymore - I had been jaded by all the moves I had to make and I didn't have enough room to run a full on nursery.
One night I had come home from Immokalee after a session, and had picked up Popeye's on the way home. I had never had Popeye's food before I knew Kelly and I went there after a night of playing realizing I had no food at home and could either get gas station food in Immokalee, McDonalds, or try something new. These were usually situated in shadier areas of town so I would just pass them by if I saw them. I remember eating it on her couch and I fell asleep watching TV. I woke up to one of the dogs licking and gently nibbling a biscuit out of my greasy hands and the others took care of the rest of the fried chicken. Kelly was pissed and she was yelling but I was way too tired to listen to what she was saying. It was early and getting up at that time was just not going to happen.
"I can't believe you went to POPEYE'S!" She exclaimed, "Now the dogs are going to choke on the bones!"
"It was DELICIOUS!" I told her, as well as that I had no regrets and it was probably going to happen again. She told me she didn't want me up until 2:15 in the morning eating garbage and being lazy all day. To her, 2:15 was the devil's time and the early bird gets the worm. I finally had woken up around 11 and when I walked outside it was already in the 90s and humid. **** this, the summers here were brutal off the coast, with the highs around 96 and the lows in the upper 70s. Add to that torrential downpours that made me almost lose my Veloster a few times to the roads that turned into rivers. I realized I didn't want to do the plant nursery in a half ass plot of land with someone trying to regulate me. A week later she came to me with a proposition to go to couples therapy, and I told her I didn't want to be a couple anymore. She didn't take that well, and I ended up going back up to Sarasota for a few months and let the plants just grow without me there. I would still come down and spend the night at the house and hang out with her, but we were just friends for now.
In the meantime, I was starting to find out where else on the West Coast I could play PLO. I went to Hard Rock in Tampa to find a 1/2/5 game and a 2/5/10 game running sometimes, a 1/2/5 game in Sarasota, and would still play the games down in Naples. At the time, Tim had started his own free poker league in the area and I had started to hang around and help him with running it. This was really where I first started running into Sally. I had seen here at these things for about 6 months, but after a spring finals tournament, she started to play in a small home game on the southside of town. Like most of the players there, she was super passive-weak and I abused her well in those cash games - she hated me for the way I played. A few weeks later, I was hanging out at a bar with some of the guys that ran the league, and a friend who I hadn't seen in 5 years' mother was hanging out there and left her small group of friends to talk to me. We both ended up getting pretty drunk and she told me that I should come back to see the place now that he wasn't around. I ended up banging her, she was in her mid-40s and decent looking for her age, but in the morning it was just really awkward, and I actually missed being down on the farm.
I ended up going back down there after Kelly and I took a business trip to Pensacola. It was over 10 hours from her place to Perdido Key, where I rented a hotel and sat while 13 inches of rain fell. I got out of there as soon as I could, and when we got back to her farm, things got hot and heavy. I really thought this was who I wanted to be with, and took interest in the nursery once again. The late summer and early fall were good, but finally we started fighting about my poker ways, my lethargicness which she attributed to multiple drugs including xanax and vicodin, and she wanted me to stop smoking. I ended up buying a vape pen and hid the pills and she seemed okay for a bit until she caught me again. In the end, I just didn't want to change for her - I cared more about going to the track, Hard Rock, and my friends back home. Finally, on New Year's Eve 2012, she said she wanted to go to the opera in Naples, but there was a big promo going on at one of the tracks and I went to play. She told me she was fine with going to the opera with one of her friends ($125 a ticket, lol) and I believed her.
I had showed up at the Naples track ready to brawl in the 2/5/10 PLO game. Midway through the night I was in MP and raised to 35 with a 1440 effective stack with K
KJ10 some middle-aged stoner just ahead of me potted it to 120 and I flatted, figuring I could flop well out of position. The flop was a beautiful KJ10 and I checked and he bet 250, which I flatted. It was so hard for him to have a piece of this board that didn't have me beat. I blocked all sets, but no straights or flushes. The turn was a beautiful J and when I checked he bet 600. This struck me as odd, because if he had a flush, he would check back, because that card made a ton of full houses and he is only going to be betting JJ, 1010, and J10. I really thought about him having AQ or Q9 in his range, it was very possible but I'm not folding kings full. He had committed himself with the 600, so I raised all in and he instantly called and tabled 89xx for two outs, and it didn't come. The $2400 pot dragged my way and I remember stacking the green chips to the tune of Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling". They closed early for the New Year, so I went with Iceman to Immokalee and we donked around at 1/2 for a while. His wife was up north with her family, so we brought in the New Year at the only cash game running in Collier County that night. I really felt like I had met the right person to talk NL and PLO hands with, and was on top of the world feeling like I was playing my A game, when really I was running well too, that always helps. We parted ways at the corner of Route 82 and Corkscrew Road around 3am and he headed back to Fort Myers. I took Corkscrew down to the farm to see no lights on and pulled up into the driveway. Kelly's car was there, and I walked up to the big wraparound porch to see my suitcase with a note that said "GOODBYE". The door was locked, and I had no keys - we only locked the door when both of us were inside. I knocked on the window to our bedroom - no answer. I put the bag in the hatch of my car and checked - there was everything I owned in the house in that bag. **** it, this was over, there was nothing I could do, nor did I want to. I got back to my house around sunrise and fell asleep, and that was the last night I lived at Kelly's. Poker and school took precedence over plants at that point, and within a few months, I had sold off the nursery I had tried to rebuild at her place. It was time to move on, not just from her, but also into poker full time.
12-28-2016
, 05:51 PM
Quote:
2012 - The Year of Kelly
(Snip)
I had showed up at the Naples track ready to brawl in the 2/5/10 PLO game. Midway through the night I was in MP and raised to 35 with a 1440 effective stack with KKJ10 some middle-aged stoner just ahead of me potted it to 120 and I flatted, figuring I could flop well out of position. The flop was a beautiful KJ10 and I checked and he bet 250, which I flatted. It was so hard for him to have a piece of this board that didn't have me beat. I blocked all sets, but no straights or flushes. The turn was a beautiful J and when I checked he bet 600. This struck me as odd, because if he had a flush, he would check back, because that card made a ton of full houses and he is only going to be betting JJ, 1010, and J10. I really thought about him having AQ or Q9 in his range, it was very possible but I'm not folding kings full. He had committed himself with the 600, so I raised all in and he instantly called and tabled 89xx for two outs (snip.
(Snip)
I had showed up at the Naples track ready to brawl in the 2/5/10 PLO game. Midway through the night I was in MP and raised to 35 with a 1440 effective stack with K
KJ10 some middle-aged stoner just ahead of me potted it to 120 and I flatted, figuring I could flop well out of position. The flop was a beautiful KJ10 and I checked and he bet 250, which I flatted. It was so hard for him to have a piece of this board that didn't have me beat. I blocked all sets, but no straights or flushes. The turn was a beautiful J and when I checked he bet 600. This struck me as odd, because if he had a flush, he would check back, because that card made a ton of full houses and he is only going to be betting JJ, 1010, and J10. I really thought about him having AQ or Q9 in his range, it was very possible but I'm not folding kings full. He had committed himself with the 600, so I raised all in and he instantly called and tabled 89xx for two outs (snip.
12-28-2016
, 06:57 PM
12-30-2016
, 10:46 AM
12-30-2016
, 11:14 AM
12-30-2016
, 11:33 AM
12-31-2016
, 02:12 PM
12-31-2016
, 11:50 PM
Trip Up North
As long as I am able, I always make a drive up north to see my father in Vermont, plus anyone else I may know along the way. I have high school friends both in Richmond, VA and out East on Long Island, but I have only been back once to either place since 2004. I went to Richmond in 2009 and found my high school friends had turned into a bunch of "bros" and I went to Long Island in 2011 and the tolls to get through NYC and out East, on a ferry to an island where I graduated high school. I do have many friends still on that island and I like to keep in touch, but I could never live there year round. It was once a calm island sheltered from the upscale Hamptons nearby, but once it was discovered, prices skyrocketed and the place was gentrified to holy hell. I stayed there for a few days and went to my old favorite stops to see you couldn't eat lunch for under $20 and it was swarming with tourists that had were destroying the island's identity. I still love the place, my grandparents were from there, but it has changed a lot in 15 years.
Nicole and I decided in late July to make a trip up north to see my dad and other family members in Boston and Connecticut, so I put Josh in charge of the game for a few weeks - I knew I could trust him and it was one of the few people that Paulie was okay with. Normally one would just fly from Tampa to Burlington, but my last two experiences in a plane involved being quarantined at JFK on a flight back from Athens when someone on the plane got sick, and an emergency landing at BWI in a severe thunderstorm. I have been driving everywhere since then, and so we headed out on a late afternoon. I brought 5k in cash with me to play and decided to take the more western route through PA. We got to Virginia by the early morning, and Nicole took over, taking the Capital Beltway to 270 and up 15 to 81 in Harrisburg. I had stopped at Pocono Downs the year before and just walked around, I decided to stay the night in Wilkes-Barre, and when we got there we took a much needed nap. I headed over there and went downstairs to their poker room, and saw they had 1-2 (or 1-3?) running but there was a huge waitlist, as well as 2-5. They did have a 10-10NL game going, and I was eager to play, but 5-10/10-10 wasn't really my game. Nicole was upstairs shopping or walking around, I knew it wouldn't be long before she would get restless. I go ahead and hop in the 10-10 game and buy in for $1500 with a feeling I was a little outside my NL comfort zone. It was a softer game than I had expected, but still was half regulars who were very good at 3-betting in the right spots.
45 minutes into the game, I pick up KK in the BB and am facing a raise to 40, two callers, and a 3-bet to 200. Faced with an awkward spot where 4-betting will commit my stack which is effective at @1400, I try to show more weakness and ship it. The original raiser goes all in for over $2k and the others fold. A Q107 flop isn't the most favorable, and instantly my opponent rolls over AK for the nutters and I have one out. The 7 pairs the board tripling my outs, but a 3 hits the river and I lose the largest pot I have been in all year. This was not how I wanted to start this trip, but I reload to $1500 and get back at it. Not even 5 hands later, I pick up 22 in the CO, and call an open from UTG to 40, and the BB comes along as well. The flop is a neat Q62. The BB throws out two black chips, which I wasn't sure was a mistake on his part, or he just really liked to donk out for over pot. I call, which looks very strong, but I think this lead is way too weak to call a raise, and the opener folds. The turn is a black 7, and 3 seconds after the card came out, BB shoves all in for my effective 1250 stack. For 5 seconds, I thought about this being a cooler before I threw a black chip over the line. He flips over Q7, and I thought he was drawing dead, but then realized differently as a red 7 hit the river and saw the pot of green, red, and black chips pushed his way. Was this really happening? I was sitting there laughing to myself at how bad I just ran, and it felt like Tim was setting the deck on me from almost 1000 miles away. I walked up the stairs and went back to the pit areas in degen mode.
I didn't really know my way around there, but I walked around the pits with $1k left starting to burn a hole in my pocket. I was smart enough to leave $1k in the car in a hiding place and my degen wasn't strong enough to go after the last of my cash up North. I bank with a local Florida bank so getting cash besides my ATM card would be nearly impossible. I decided to go for something I had never played before - roulette. I had played the electronic type without the dealer in Florida, but never with a croupier present. I was afraid to tell him it was my first time but then I realize there was no skill, so I told him and he changed me out $1k in green and this Indian guy with a stack of green and red next to me was chanting "YES YES YES!" I told them I was probably going to hit and run but the whole stack was going in when I did. After the 4th run the Indian guy was so excited he couldn't control himself.
"Sir you must play now, red and even are so HOT!" He wanted to see me when more than I did.
"Okay, I'm going with a dozen, which one?"
"Last 12, LAST 12!" I stuck both stacks in the 3rd 12 betting area. The croupier called last bets and I watched the ball spin around and around. Jesus what a tease, this felt forever and I was feeling a little faint. It wasn't the fact that I might be stuck 4k in a few hours, it was the fact that I was betting 1k on roulette. I would rather lose 10k in poker than 1k playing a game I have a -5% edge in. It started to make me sick and I put my weight against the closest post while watching the ball slow down and drop, and from my view I couldn't even see where it went. It was a red number and double digits, but I didn't know for sure I had won until I saw 4 stacks of green match my two and a "red, 27" from the dealer. **** this was easy! I left my two original stacks in and let it ride for another roll, no matter what I was up 1k in roulette, now I could be up 1k over all if it hit again. As soon as the ball started spinning again my head did, and I got sick for the second time in minutes. Why was I doing this to myself? I know my dad would lose his mind if he knew I was playing against the odds, and Nicole probably wouldn't be happy but it wasn't her money so **** it. I wasn't even looking at the table, I was just staring at the people walking by, it became slow motion.
"Red, 25." Again I wasn't completely sure that was a win but checked the board and it was barely inside. I just ran a 3k loss into a 1k win in minutes. No wonder people love this game. I asked for a color up and got some $500s and tipped the dealer $50 and the Indian guy $50. I don't know what a normal tip is for a croupier but I didn't want to be cheap, and I felt the Indian guy had given me good karma so I wanted to thank him. I found Nicole and showed her my wallet and she gave me this WTF face like had I lost my mind being out three grand in an evening. The truth was she never saw my losses, she didn't have access to my bank account, and she only knew because I told her I was bringing 5k in cash in case something happened. Then I showed her the purple chips and she didn't know what they were at first but her eyes lit up. For me, coming out of a 3k hole where I ran bad, erasing it in minutes was like a 10k win. I wanted to celebrate but I remember the nice restaurants like Ruth Chris weren't open, so I asked her what she wanted. Chinese. Really? I found the only Chinese place open in Wilkes-Barre later at night and had it ordered to the hotel and told her we had to go. I cashed out all the chips except for 4 blacks I had left over in the color up and made sure I would hit this place up on my way back.
The ride from Wilkes-Barre to my dad's place near Middlebury, VT is scenic but relatively boring, but we got there in the afternoon. My dad lives on about 3 acres a few miles outside of town overlooking Otter Creek. He was originally from Keene, NH and told me he hated VT because of the extreme winters and "pinkos" as he refers to them, but his live-in girlfriend of 15 years loved it here so he wasn't going to move. I don't remember if I mentioned my dad's past, but he worked as a bond broker for about 15 years for a few larger firms, and he just up and left the business in the mid-90s. He would do bicycle tours cross country from Portsmouth, NH to San Francisco and at 63 years old, could still take me in a fight. He had been teaching math and economics at a local college and loved it. I inherited my frugal tendencies from my father, and he praised me for it. I think as he got older he realized the money was no good in the coffin and started to enjoy it. He had given his Kia Soul to my sister and bought a new Jeep Wrangler Sahara Unlimited, and had a 73 VW bus and there was a 67 Jaguar XKE in the driveway when we pulled in.
"Hey buddy!" He exclaimed, gave me a manly hug and I introduced him to Nicole. Nicole and my dad's girlfriend got acquainted well, which was surprising because she was an odd character. She was Armenian and from New Jersey, and had lived a pretty normal business life when she retired around the age of 40 and moved up here with my dad. She worked at the county humane society, but her father was probably the best eye doctor in New Jersey during his years of practice and he had clearly given her quite a bit of an inheritance already. She was also a vegetarian, a marathon runner, was never married, and was a bit socially disconnected, but she is a great person and I never thought badly of her.
"How was Pocono Downs?" My dad asked, as he knew that I went there the night before. I showed him the black chips and he was impressed, he approved of my poker ways, just not the underground part.
"I was actually down 3000 and played two spins of roulette and made it all back plus some." He laughed and I started to laugh with him, he just thought I was joking. I wish I were joking, I wish I never got that taste of the pits.
As long as I am able, I always make a drive up north to see my father in Vermont, plus anyone else I may know along the way. I have high school friends both in Richmond, VA and out East on Long Island, but I have only been back once to either place since 2004. I went to Richmond in 2009 and found my high school friends had turned into a bunch of "bros" and I went to Long Island in 2011 and the tolls to get through NYC and out East, on a ferry to an island where I graduated high school. I do have many friends still on that island and I like to keep in touch, but I could never live there year round. It was once a calm island sheltered from the upscale Hamptons nearby, but once it was discovered, prices skyrocketed and the place was gentrified to holy hell. I stayed there for a few days and went to my old favorite stops to see you couldn't eat lunch for under $20 and it was swarming with tourists that had were destroying the island's identity. I still love the place, my grandparents were from there, but it has changed a lot in 15 years.
Nicole and I decided in late July to make a trip up north to see my dad and other family members in Boston and Connecticut, so I put Josh in charge of the game for a few weeks - I knew I could trust him and it was one of the few people that Paulie was okay with. Normally one would just fly from Tampa to Burlington, but my last two experiences in a plane involved being quarantined at JFK on a flight back from Athens when someone on the plane got sick, and an emergency landing at BWI in a severe thunderstorm. I have been driving everywhere since then, and so we headed out on a late afternoon. I brought 5k in cash with me to play and decided to take the more western route through PA. We got to Virginia by the early morning, and Nicole took over, taking the Capital Beltway to 270 and up 15 to 81 in Harrisburg. I had stopped at Pocono Downs the year before and just walked around, I decided to stay the night in Wilkes-Barre, and when we got there we took a much needed nap. I headed over there and went downstairs to their poker room, and saw they had 1-2 (or 1-3?) running but there was a huge waitlist, as well as 2-5. They did have a 10-10NL game going, and I was eager to play, but 5-10/10-10 wasn't really my game. Nicole was upstairs shopping or walking around, I knew it wouldn't be long before she would get restless. I go ahead and hop in the 10-10 game and buy in for $1500 with a feeling I was a little outside my NL comfort zone. It was a softer game than I had expected, but still was half regulars who were very good at 3-betting in the right spots.
45 minutes into the game, I pick up K
K in the BB and am facing a raise to 40, two callers, and a 3-bet to 200. Faced with an awkward spot where 4-betting will commit my stack which is effective at @1400, I try to show more weakness and ship it. The original raiser goes all in for over $2k and the others fold. A Q107 flop isn't the most favorable, and instantly my opponent rolls over AK for the nutters and I have one out. The 7 pairs the board tripling my outs, but a 3 hits the river and I lose the largest pot I have been in all year. This was not how I wanted to start this trip, but I reload to $1500 and get back at it. Not even 5 hands later, I pick up 22 in the CO, and call an open from UTG to 40, and the BB comes along as well. The flop is a neat Q62. The BB throws out two black chips, which I wasn't sure was a mistake on his part, or he just really liked to donk out for over pot. I call, which looks very strong, but I think this lead is way too weak to call a raise, and the opener folds. The turn is a black 7, and 3 seconds after the card came out, BB shoves all in for my effective 1250 stack. For 5 seconds, I thought about this being a cooler before I threw a black chip over the line. He flips over Q7, and I thought he was drawing dead, but then realized differently as a red 7 hit the river and saw the pot of green, red, and black chips pushed his way. Was this really happening? I was sitting there laughing to myself at how bad I just ran, and it felt like Tim was setting the deck on me from almost 1000 miles away. I walked up the stairs and went back to the pit areas in degen mode.I didn't really know my way around there, but I walked around the pits with $1k left starting to burn a hole in my pocket. I was smart enough to leave $1k in the car in a hiding place and my degen wasn't strong enough to go after the last of my cash up North. I bank with a local Florida bank so getting cash besides my ATM card would be nearly impossible. I decided to go for something I had never played before - roulette. I had played the electronic type without the dealer in Florida, but never with a croupier present. I was afraid to tell him it was my first time but then I realize there was no skill, so I told him and he changed me out $1k in green and this Indian guy with a stack of green and red next to me was chanting "YES YES YES!" I told them I was probably going to hit and run but the whole stack was going in when I did. After the 4th run the Indian guy was so excited he couldn't control himself.
"Sir you must play now, red and even are so HOT!" He wanted to see me when more than I did.
"Okay, I'm going with a dozen, which one?"
"Last 12, LAST 12!" I stuck both stacks in the 3rd 12 betting area. The croupier called last bets and I watched the ball spin around and around. Jesus what a tease, this felt forever and I was feeling a little faint. It wasn't the fact that I might be stuck 4k in a few hours, it was the fact that I was betting 1k on roulette. I would rather lose 10k in poker than 1k playing a game I have a -5% edge in. It started to make me sick and I put my weight against the closest post while watching the ball slow down and drop, and from my view I couldn't even see where it went. It was a red number and double digits, but I didn't know for sure I had won until I saw 4 stacks of green match my two and a "red, 27" from the dealer. **** this was easy! I left my two original stacks in and let it ride for another roll, no matter what I was up 1k in roulette, now I could be up 1k over all if it hit again. As soon as the ball started spinning again my head did, and I got sick for the second time in minutes. Why was I doing this to myself? I know my dad would lose his mind if he knew I was playing against the odds, and Nicole probably wouldn't be happy but it wasn't her money so **** it. I wasn't even looking at the table, I was just staring at the people walking by, it became slow motion.
"Red, 25." Again I wasn't completely sure that was a win but checked the board and it was barely inside. I just ran a 3k loss into a 1k win in minutes. No wonder people love this game. I asked for a color up and got some $500s and tipped the dealer $50 and the Indian guy $50. I don't know what a normal tip is for a croupier but I didn't want to be cheap, and I felt the Indian guy had given me good karma so I wanted to thank him. I found Nicole and showed her my wallet and she gave me this WTF face like had I lost my mind being out three grand in an evening. The truth was she never saw my losses, she didn't have access to my bank account, and she only knew because I told her I was bringing 5k in cash in case something happened. Then I showed her the purple chips and she didn't know what they were at first but her eyes lit up. For me, coming out of a 3k hole where I ran bad, erasing it in minutes was like a 10k win. I wanted to celebrate but I remember the nice restaurants like Ruth Chris weren't open, so I asked her what she wanted. Chinese. Really? I found the only Chinese place open in Wilkes-Barre later at night and had it ordered to the hotel and told her we had to go. I cashed out all the chips except for 4 blacks I had left over in the color up and made sure I would hit this place up on my way back.
The ride from Wilkes-Barre to my dad's place near Middlebury, VT is scenic but relatively boring, but we got there in the afternoon. My dad lives on about 3 acres a few miles outside of town overlooking Otter Creek. He was originally from Keene, NH and told me he hated VT because of the extreme winters and "pinkos" as he refers to them, but his live-in girlfriend of 15 years loved it here so he wasn't going to move. I don't remember if I mentioned my dad's past, but he worked as a bond broker for about 15 years for a few larger firms, and he just up and left the business in the mid-90s. He would do bicycle tours cross country from Portsmouth, NH to San Francisco and at 63 years old, could still take me in a fight. He had been teaching math and economics at a local college and loved it. I inherited my frugal tendencies from my father, and he praised me for it. I think as he got older he realized the money was no good in the coffin and started to enjoy it. He had given his Kia Soul to my sister and bought a new Jeep Wrangler Sahara Unlimited, and had a 73 VW bus and there was a 67 Jaguar XKE in the driveway when we pulled in.
"Hey buddy!" He exclaimed, gave me a manly hug and I introduced him to Nicole. Nicole and my dad's girlfriend got acquainted well, which was surprising because she was an odd character. She was Armenian and from New Jersey, and had lived a pretty normal business life when she retired around the age of 40 and moved up here with my dad. She worked at the county humane society, but her father was probably the best eye doctor in New Jersey during his years of practice and he had clearly given her quite a bit of an inheritance already. She was also a vegetarian, a marathon runner, was never married, and was a bit socially disconnected, but she is a great person and I never thought badly of her.
"How was Pocono Downs?" My dad asked, as he knew that I went there the night before. I showed him the black chips and he was impressed, he approved of my poker ways, just not the underground part.
"I was actually down 3000 and played two spins of roulette and made it all back plus some." He laughed and I started to laugh with him, he just thought I was joking. I wish I were joking, I wish I never got that taste of the pits.
01-01-2017
, 08:52 PM
01-02-2017
, 01:31 AM
01-02-2017
, 06:34 AM
Quote:
Trip Up North
As long as I am able, I always make a drive up north to see my father in Vermont, plus anyone else I may know along the way. I have high school friends both in Richmond, VA and out East on Long Island, but I have only been back once to either place since 2004. I went to Richmond in 2009 and found my high school friends had turned into a bunch of "bros" and I went to Long Island in 2011 and the tolls to get through NYC and out East, on a ferry to an island where I graduated high school. I do have many friends still on that island and I like to keep in touch, but I could never live there year round. It was once a calm island sheltered from the upscale Hamptons nearby, but once it was discovered, prices skyrocketed and the place was gentrified to holy hell. I stayed there for a few days and went to my old favorite stops to see you couldn't eat lunch for under $20 and it was swarming with tourists that had were destroying the island's identity. I still love the place, my grandparents were from there, but it has changed a lot in 15 years.
Nicole and I decided in late July to make a trip up north to see my dad and other family members in Boston and Connecticut, so I put Josh in charge of the game for a few weeks - I knew I could trust him and it was one of the few people that Paulie was okay with. Normally one would just fly from Tampa to Burlington, but my last two experiences in a plane involved being quarantined at JFK on a flight back from Athens when someone on the plane got sick, and an emergency landing at BWI in a severe thunderstorm. I have been driving everywhere since then, and so we headed out on a late afternoon. I brought 5k in cash with me to play and decided to take the more western route through PA. We got to Virginia by the early morning, and Nicole took over, taking the Capital Beltway to 270 and up 15 to 81 in Harrisburg. I had stopped at Pocono Downs the year before and just walked around, I decided to stay the night in Wilkes-Barre, and when we got there we took a much needed nap. I headed over there and went downstairs to their poker room, and saw they had 1-2 (or 1-3?) running but there was a huge waitlist, as well as 2-5. They did have a 10-10NL game going, and I was eager to play, but 5-10/10-10 wasn't really my game. Nicole was upstairs shopping or walking around, I knew it wouldn't be long before she would get restless. I go ahead and hop in the 10-10 game and buy in for $1500 with a feeling I was a little outside my NL comfort zone. It was a softer game than I had expected, but still was half regulars who were very good at 3-betting in the right spots.
45 minutes into the game, I pick up KK in the BB and am facing a raise to 40, two callers, and a 3-bet to 200. Faced with an awkward spot where 4-betting will commit my stack which is effective at @1400, I try to show more weakness and ship it. The original raiser goes all in for over $2k and the others fold. A Q107 flop isn't the most favorable, and instantly my opponent rolls over AK for the nutters and I have one out. The 7 pairs the board tripling my outs, but a 3 hits the river and I lose the largest pot I have been in all year. This was not how I wanted to start this trip, but I reload to $1500 and get back at it. Not even 5 hands later, I pick up 22 in the CO, and call an open from UTG to 40, and the BB comes along as well. The flop is a neat Q62. The BB throws out two black chips, which I wasn't sure was a mistake on his part, or he just really liked to donk out for over pot. I call, which looks very strong, but I think this lead is way too weak to call a raise, and the opener folds. The turn is a black 7, and 3 seconds after the card came out, BB shoves all in for my effective 1250 stack. For 5 seconds, I thought about this being a cooler before I threw a black chip over the line. He flips over Q7, and I thought he was drawing dead, but then realized differently as a red 7 hit the river and saw the pot of green, red, and black chips pushed his way. Was this really happening? I was sitting there laughing to myself at how bad I just ran, and it felt like Tim was setting the deck on me from almost 1000 miles away. I walked up the stairs and went back to the pit areas in degen mode.
I didn't really know my way around there, but I walked around the pits with $1k left starting to burn a hole in my pocket. I was smart enough to leave $1k in the car in a hiding place and my degen wasn't strong enough to go after the last of my cash up North. I bank with a local Florida bank so getting cash besides my ATM card would be nearly impossible. I decided to go for something I had never played before - roulette. I had played the electronic type without the dealer in Florida, but never with a croupier present. I was afraid to tell him it was my first time but then I realize there was no skill, so I told him and he changed me out $1k in green and this Indian guy with a stack of green and red next to me was chanting "YES YES YES!" I told them I was probably going to hit and run but the whole stack was going in when I did. After the 4th run the Indian guy was so excited he couldn't control himself.
"Sir you must play now, red and even are so HOT!" He wanted to see me when more than I did.
"Okay, I'm going with a dozen, which one?"
"Last 12, LAST 12!" I stuck both stacks in the 3rd 12 betting area. The croupier called last bets and I watched the ball spin around and around. Jesus what a tease, this felt forever and I was feeling a little faint. It wasn't the fact that I might be stuck 4k in a few hours, it was the fact that I was betting 1k on roulette. I would rather lose 10k in poker than 1k playing a game I have a -5% edge in. It started to make me sick and I put my weight against the closest post while watching the ball slow down and drop, and from my view I couldn't even see where it went. It was a red number and double digits, but I didn't know for sure I had won until I saw 4 stacks of green match my two and a "red, 27" from the dealer. **** this was easy! I left my two original stacks in and let it ride for another roll, no matter what I was up 1k in roulette, now I could be up 1k over all if it hit again. As soon as the ball started spinning again my head did, and I got sick for the second time in minutes. Why was I doing this to myself? I know my dad would lose his mind if he knew I was playing against the odds, and Nicole probably wouldn't be happy but it wasn't her money so **** it. I wasn't even looking at the table, I was just staring at the people walking by, it became slow motion.
"Red, 25." Again I wasn't completely sure that was a win but checked the board and it was barely inside. I just ran a 3k loss into a 1k win in minutes. No wonder people love this game. I asked for a color up and got some $500s and tipped the dealer $50 and the Indian guy $50. I don't know what a normal tip is for a croupier but I didn't want to be cheap, and I felt the Indian guy had given me good karma so I wanted to thank him. I found Nicole and showed her my wallet and she gave me this WTF face like had I lost my mind being out three grand in an evening. The truth was she never saw my losses, she didn't have access to my bank account, and she only knew because I told her I was bringing 5k in cash in case something happened. Then I showed her the purple chips and she didn't know what they were at first but her eyes lit up. For me, coming out of a 3k hole where I ran bad, erasing it in minutes was like a 10k win. I wanted to celebrate but I remember the nice restaurants like Ruth Chris weren't open, so I asked her what she wanted. Chinese. Really? I found the only Chinese place open in Wilkes-Barre later at night and had it ordered to the hotel and told her we had to go. I cashed out all the chips except for 4 blacks I had left over in the color up and made sure I would hit this place up on my way back.
The ride from Wilkes-Barre to my dad's place near Middlebury, VT is scenic but relatively boring, but we got there in the afternoon. My dad lives on about 3 acres a few miles outside of town overlooking Otter Creek. He was originally from Keene, NH and told me he hated VT because of the extreme winters and "pinkos" as he refers to them, but his live-in girlfriend of 15 years loved it here so he wasn't going to move. I don't remember if I mentioned my dad's past, but he worked as a bond broker for about 15 years for a few larger firms, and he just up and left the business in the mid-90s. He would do bicycle tours cross country from Portsmouth, NH to San Francisco and at 63 years old, could still take me in a fight. He had been teaching math and economics at a local college and loved it. I inherited my frugal tendencies from my father, and he praised me for it. I think as he got older he realized the money was no good in the coffin and started to enjoy it. He had given his Kia Soul to my sister and bought a new Jeep Wrangler Sahara Unlimited, and had a 73 VW bus and there was a 67 Jaguar XKE in the driveway when we pulled in.
"Hey buddy!" He exclaimed, gave me a manly hug and I introduced him to Nicole. Nicole and my dad's girlfriend got acquainted well, which was surprising because she was an odd character. She was Armenian and from New Jersey, and had lived a pretty normal business life when she retired around the age of 40 and moved up here with my dad. She worked at the county humane society, but her father was probably the best eye doctor in New Jersey during his years of practice and he had clearly given her quite a bit of an inheritance already. She was also a vegetarian, a marathon runner, was never married, and was a bit socially disconnected, but she is a great person and I never thought badly of her.
"How was Pocono Downs?" My dad asked, as he knew that I went there the night before. I showed him the black chips and he was impressed, he approved of my poker ways, just not the underground part.
"I was actually down 3000 and played two spins of roulette and made it all back plus some." He laughed and I started to laugh with him, he just thought I was joking. I wish I were joking, I wish I never got that taste of the pits.
As long as I am able, I always make a drive up north to see my father in Vermont, plus anyone else I may know along the way. I have high school friends both in Richmond, VA and out East on Long Island, but I have only been back once to either place since 2004. I went to Richmond in 2009 and found my high school friends had turned into a bunch of "bros" and I went to Long Island in 2011 and the tolls to get through NYC and out East, on a ferry to an island where I graduated high school. I do have many friends still on that island and I like to keep in touch, but I could never live there year round. It was once a calm island sheltered from the upscale Hamptons nearby, but once it was discovered, prices skyrocketed and the place was gentrified to holy hell. I stayed there for a few days and went to my old favorite stops to see you couldn't eat lunch for under $20 and it was swarming with tourists that had were destroying the island's identity. I still love the place, my grandparents were from there, but it has changed a lot in 15 years.
Nicole and I decided in late July to make a trip up north to see my dad and other family members in Boston and Connecticut, so I put Josh in charge of the game for a few weeks - I knew I could trust him and it was one of the few people that Paulie was okay with. Normally one would just fly from Tampa to Burlington, but my last two experiences in a plane involved being quarantined at JFK on a flight back from Athens when someone on the plane got sick, and an emergency landing at BWI in a severe thunderstorm. I have been driving everywhere since then, and so we headed out on a late afternoon. I brought 5k in cash with me to play and decided to take the more western route through PA. We got to Virginia by the early morning, and Nicole took over, taking the Capital Beltway to 270 and up 15 to 81 in Harrisburg. I had stopped at Pocono Downs the year before and just walked around, I decided to stay the night in Wilkes-Barre, and when we got there we took a much needed nap. I headed over there and went downstairs to their poker room, and saw they had 1-2 (or 1-3?) running but there was a huge waitlist, as well as 2-5. They did have a 10-10NL game going, and I was eager to play, but 5-10/10-10 wasn't really my game. Nicole was upstairs shopping or walking around, I knew it wouldn't be long before she would get restless. I go ahead and hop in the 10-10 game and buy in for $1500 with a feeling I was a little outside my NL comfort zone. It was a softer game than I had expected, but still was half regulars who were very good at 3-betting in the right spots.
45 minutes into the game, I pick up K
K in the BB and am facing a raise to 40, two callers, and a 3-bet to 200. Faced with an awkward spot where 4-betting will commit my stack which is effective at @1400, I try to show more weakness and ship it. The original raiser goes all in for over $2k and the others fold. A Q107 flop isn't the most favorable, and instantly my opponent rolls over AK for the nutters and I have one out. The 7 pairs the board tripling my outs, but a 3 hits the river and I lose the largest pot I have been in all year. This was not how I wanted to start this trip, but I reload to $1500 and get back at it. Not even 5 hands later, I pick up 22 in the CO, and call an open from UTG to 40, and the BB comes along as well. The flop is a neat Q62. The BB throws out two black chips, which I wasn't sure was a mistake on his part, or he just really liked to donk out for over pot. I call, which looks very strong, but I think this lead is way too weak to call a raise, and the opener folds. The turn is a black 7, and 3 seconds after the card came out, BB shoves all in for my effective 1250 stack. For 5 seconds, I thought about this being a cooler before I threw a black chip over the line. He flips over Q7, and I thought he was drawing dead, but then realized differently as a red 7 hit the river and saw the pot of green, red, and black chips pushed his way. Was this really happening? I was sitting there laughing to myself at how bad I just ran, and it felt like Tim was setting the deck on me from almost 1000 miles away. I walked up the stairs and went back to the pit areas in degen mode.I didn't really know my way around there, but I walked around the pits with $1k left starting to burn a hole in my pocket. I was smart enough to leave $1k in the car in a hiding place and my degen wasn't strong enough to go after the last of my cash up North. I bank with a local Florida bank so getting cash besides my ATM card would be nearly impossible. I decided to go for something I had never played before - roulette. I had played the electronic type without the dealer in Florida, but never with a croupier present. I was afraid to tell him it was my first time but then I realize there was no skill, so I told him and he changed me out $1k in green and this Indian guy with a stack of green and red next to me was chanting "YES YES YES!" I told them I was probably going to hit and run but the whole stack was going in when I did. After the 4th run the Indian guy was so excited he couldn't control himself.
"Sir you must play now, red and even are so HOT!" He wanted to see me when more than I did.
"Okay, I'm going with a dozen, which one?"
"Last 12, LAST 12!" I stuck both stacks in the 3rd 12 betting area. The croupier called last bets and I watched the ball spin around and around. Jesus what a tease, this felt forever and I was feeling a little faint. It wasn't the fact that I might be stuck 4k in a few hours, it was the fact that I was betting 1k on roulette. I would rather lose 10k in poker than 1k playing a game I have a -5% edge in. It started to make me sick and I put my weight against the closest post while watching the ball slow down and drop, and from my view I couldn't even see where it went. It was a red number and double digits, but I didn't know for sure I had won until I saw 4 stacks of green match my two and a "red, 27" from the dealer. **** this was easy! I left my two original stacks in and let it ride for another roll, no matter what I was up 1k in roulette, now I could be up 1k over all if it hit again. As soon as the ball started spinning again my head did, and I got sick for the second time in minutes. Why was I doing this to myself? I know my dad would lose his mind if he knew I was playing against the odds, and Nicole probably wouldn't be happy but it wasn't her money so **** it. I wasn't even looking at the table, I was just staring at the people walking by, it became slow motion.
"Red, 25." Again I wasn't completely sure that was a win but checked the board and it was barely inside. I just ran a 3k loss into a 1k win in minutes. No wonder people love this game. I asked for a color up and got some $500s and tipped the dealer $50 and the Indian guy $50. I don't know what a normal tip is for a croupier but I didn't want to be cheap, and I felt the Indian guy had given me good karma so I wanted to thank him. I found Nicole and showed her my wallet and she gave me this WTF face like had I lost my mind being out three grand in an evening. The truth was she never saw my losses, she didn't have access to my bank account, and she only knew because I told her I was bringing 5k in cash in case something happened. Then I showed her the purple chips and she didn't know what they were at first but her eyes lit up. For me, coming out of a 3k hole where I ran bad, erasing it in minutes was like a 10k win. I wanted to celebrate but I remember the nice restaurants like Ruth Chris weren't open, so I asked her what she wanted. Chinese. Really? I found the only Chinese place open in Wilkes-Barre later at night and had it ordered to the hotel and told her we had to go. I cashed out all the chips except for 4 blacks I had left over in the color up and made sure I would hit this place up on my way back.
The ride from Wilkes-Barre to my dad's place near Middlebury, VT is scenic but relatively boring, but we got there in the afternoon. My dad lives on about 3 acres a few miles outside of town overlooking Otter Creek. He was originally from Keene, NH and told me he hated VT because of the extreme winters and "pinkos" as he refers to them, but his live-in girlfriend of 15 years loved it here so he wasn't going to move. I don't remember if I mentioned my dad's past, but he worked as a bond broker for about 15 years for a few larger firms, and he just up and left the business in the mid-90s. He would do bicycle tours cross country from Portsmouth, NH to San Francisco and at 63 years old, could still take me in a fight. He had been teaching math and economics at a local college and loved it. I inherited my frugal tendencies from my father, and he praised me for it. I think as he got older he realized the money was no good in the coffin and started to enjoy it. He had given his Kia Soul to my sister and bought a new Jeep Wrangler Sahara Unlimited, and had a 73 VW bus and there was a 67 Jaguar XKE in the driveway when we pulled in.
"Hey buddy!" He exclaimed, gave me a manly hug and I introduced him to Nicole. Nicole and my dad's girlfriend got acquainted well, which was surprising because she was an odd character. She was Armenian and from New Jersey, and had lived a pretty normal business life when she retired around the age of 40 and moved up here with my dad. She worked at the county humane society, but her father was probably the best eye doctor in New Jersey during his years of practice and he had clearly given her quite a bit of an inheritance already. She was also a vegetarian, a marathon runner, was never married, and was a bit socially disconnected, but she is a great person and I never thought badly of her.
"How was Pocono Downs?" My dad asked, as he knew that I went there the night before. I showed him the black chips and he was impressed, he approved of my poker ways, just not the underground part.
"I was actually down 3000 and played two spins of roulette and made it all back plus some." He laughed and I started to laugh with him, he just thought I was joking. I wish I were joking, I wish I never got that taste of the pits.
Love your stories btw, keep up the good work.