My Yoga class ends at ~8:15 and after grabbing some food Im off on the 50 minute drive to foxwoods. I’ve never been before so I’m using the gps on the phone, I notice it has a low battery so I plug it into the cigarette charger. ~20 minutes away my phone tells me it is on power, inspecting the charger I see that a joint has come loose and wires are exposed. I try to thumb through and memorize the directions, but I’m not very familiar with the app, and soon the phone is off. There is a sign that says an exit leads to the Magagjdfsh indian reserve, so I’m like okay sweet I’ll just take this exit and follow the signs.

My anxiety level starts to rise as I start coming to intersections with no signs, or that maybe have signs I cannot see because of the thick layer of fog. I find myself driving down a long road that using my poker-sharpened logical skills I can tell probably does not lead to a major casino. I stop at a gas station and go inside to buy some gas and ask where I can buy a phone charger. The lady gives me directions to walmart, and I go out to pump the gas.
It’s a testament to my state of mind that I didn’t park the car close enough for the hose to reach. I move the car and try again, but the pump is refusing to work. Inside the lady asserts that I pumped a few dollars of gas, which I refute, pointing out that the reason I hung the hose back up was because I was unable to pump the gas. She concedes.

Outside the pump is going on and off weirdly, until I realize a guy is talking to me and only pump up to the amount I paid for. I stop at 9.92 as a gesture of good will.

I drive past walmart, which, contrary to the gas station ladies opinion, you can miss if the lights of the sign can’t penetrate the fog. When I get inside the phone charger is there, but its locked into its little hanger thing by some sort of anti-theft device piece of plastic. There are no store associates to help me, so I twist the box until the plastic loop holding it up breaks. The lady at the front looks at the broken loop but doesn’t say anything. My phone comes back to life and I’m on my way to the foxwoods. I arrive at 10:30.

Entering the casino my first stop is customer service to sign up for a loyalty card. The process of giving my information to the service lady is made difficult by a cover band playing the clean version of Cee Lo Green’s “**** You” . Thankfully the singer doesn’t say any of the “****s” in the song, so we get a lot of info in there. She gives me my card and I’m off to the poker room.
You ride an escalator into the poker room and theres a big poker logo, It was very cool +1 to the architect guy who thought of that. I go up to the cage and I guy starts a conversations with me buy offering to sell me 100 in chips, I refuse because I want 200, but I start talking to the guy. I told him where I was from and he told me there use to be a nude beach there that got away with it because it was a bird sanctuary, (it’s true! http://www.sunclad.com/pilgrim/moonstone.shtml ). He then started to tell me that If I had a losing session I should go try to run up 10 dollars at BJ or roulette because “10 won’t make a difference either way” He cut himself off though when I said I didn’t know how to play those games though so good for him!

I waitlisted up front and sat on the bench beside it with my hands on my chips, my eyes closed, and trying to meditate while listening for my initials. I had planned to control my breathing the whole drive over to extend my yoga-instilled mindset, but that obviously didn’t happen, so when I sat at the table I was less calm than I would have liked.

The a big white guy wearing a dress shirt, demands to see my ID as I gave my loyalty card to the dealer. I smile and tell him that I don’t have to show him my ID, he says that if I win a pot against him he’ll have floor check my ID. The dealer really tried to get him to shut up, and my ID wasn’t checked once that night. I needed an ID to sign up for the loyalty card so I guess that’s why the dealer didn’t take it seriously, or maybe they don’t mind underage players. As I sat waiting for my BB, I told him I didn’t want to show him my ID because I was a female to male transsexual and was still a little embarrassed about it. He sort of thought about it for 3 seconds before coming back weakly with a shut the **** up in a soft tone. Throughout the night he would critique me for stacking my chips weird, paying too much attention to hands I wasn’t in ( he did this by imitating my leaning to different parts of the table to look at action), and for the way I sat with my elbows. He open limped a lot and sadly showed me that he had to fold KQs prf vs a 3bet then a 4bet, but wasn’t the worst guy at the table.

Him and his boy were always leaving for like 20 minutes to like collect debts or like ask people to deal in his home game. He was like blatantly advertising his home game. The weirdest thing was he invited who I think was the best player at the table to join his home game.
The guy he invited was a ginger guy named <removed>, which I knew because all the dealers called him that. Him and this black guy next to him were talking strategy and open raised and he seemed to play pretty solid. The one exception was when <ginger> open raised, black guy(who ill call reg 2) called and dress shirt 3 bet all in for like 50 more. <ginger> called and reg2 called, I don’t remember the board but I do know <ginger> showed down like A7 and reg2 showed 8 10s for a straight . I guess him and reg 2 were in some crazy reg level war but it was very weird hand.
I played a hand against him where he and 2 others limped to me on the button and I made it 8 with aqo (thinking he was only one in the hand) him and utg call and the flop come j75 rainbow (undercards might be off) I cbet 15 into pot utg folds adam calls. I don’t know what flop was (not an A or Q) and it goes check check. He ½ pots me on river and I fold.

Reg2 I was in a few preflop pots with. He open raised a ton so I felt comfortable 3betting him with AQo from the small blind when he opened 10 from cutoff, I made it 2.5x and he folded. Then I got AA in sb he open raised to 11 from CO button calls, I make it 40 and 2 folds. Not much there.
Adam eventually left the table but not before pointing out that he and I were observing hands that we were not involved in, which sort of shattered my illusions that I was perceived as a new player, just have to work on not coming off as an internet dude.
On my left was a big guy with long hair who I learned hit the BBJ, and had a foster home. He thought my transsexual joke was pretty funny and kept showing me hands. Then an old guy who spent most of his time talking to his railbird friend, and had to be prompted every time it was his turn to limp or fold. He did this weird angle-shoot where he moved his entire stack past the line then brought it back. The dealer was like wtf that’s a bet, but the guy he was heads up with was like, I have a straight, and then he showed his straight, and then he told the dealer he didn’t want to put the old guy all in, which is like o: .

Show straight guy was a big Russian, I didn’t play any pots with him but base on that I don’t think he’s a very strong player. I talked to him about Russian climbing bridge videos on YouTube.
Then there was a Persian guy who would groan every time he folded a hand that rivered 2 pair or whatever and berated my for asking what chopping the blinds was. Him and dress shirt guy got into an argument when dress shirt guy accused him of flashing his cards every time he folded. They started whipping out there verbal dicks while I watched fascinated. I just typed I was fascinated by verbal dicks ROFL! The floor was called, and I started laughing to myself because these guys were shouting at each other and they did not give a ****. They were just like okay okay calm down they didn’t try to talk over the antagonists, just told them they got warnings. Then like immediately after the two arguers both calmed right down. It was like they had to represent and once the floor was called there honor was satisfied. It was downright peacocky!!!
Then there was a guy who was boys with fancy dress shirt guy. He was pretty agrodonky, and liked to talk a lot during hands. <ginger> the reg told reg2 that he was a fish and I agreed with him internally. I played the following pot with him.

2 limpers to him in late middle position and he open raises to $12, I look down at AdAh in the BB and 3bet to $42. He asks me questions and pretends to fold for like 3 minutes before calling my 3bet. The flop comes AcKcJd I lead out for $60, he asks how much I have behind and the dealer counts for him, before putting me all in for ~200 total . I snap call and the dealer turns a 7c then an 8c. The astute reader may guess what has happened. He turns over JcJs, Everyone, myself included, thinks I have won the pot, until the dealer announces that he has a flush. Everyone at the table but me goes “ooooh!” .Dress shirt guy says “You know what time it is” and his boy yells “Shippppppp ittttttttt!!!!” . Long haired bbj guy trys to consle me and I say “Its whatever” I am surprisingly calm. I have $100 left but I had placed a $200 dollar stop loss and didn’t even consider rebuying.
I’m a student and $200 dollars is a sizeable amount of money for me, although I do have a poker only money roll of 400, I mean 200 now LOL! I made@ 1.50 an hour at 4nl, So I’m not going to go again either until I graduate and have a job where 200 isn’t 10% of my net worth, or I’m playing with someone elses money (99% not going to happen because I have no poker friends.) I’ve already quit online as part of an ongoing effort to stop wasting my life on the internet so I guess this is goodbye to poker for a while. the reason I’m able to be so upbeat while writing this is my life has been on an upswing and I think in the back of my head I know if I had gone on a heater and made 1k or something It would be damaging to my academic and personal life, and though I’m obviously saddened by losing a 92% favorite pot I really did enjoy experiencing the casino and shooting **** with the degens. Thanks for reading!!!!