Made my first trip of the year to A.C. last weekend because it was a 3-day weekend and K wanted to go watch the Click2Asia poker tourney. I was undecided as to whether I was going to play since I had a stronger hankering to play blackjack, plus the blind structure of the tourney brings a lot of luck into play (I’ve ranted about it in previous posts; basically you need to catch some cards within the first hour or else you will get blinded/ante’d away because they are 15 minute levels with an ante on level 3). But we managed to leave early enough to get down to the Taj before the tourney started, and I had convinced K to play on the ride down, so I decided to enter too. Twoin also entered which was cool since it was his first tourney ever and other than the dailies at IP in Vegas, I couldn’t think of a better intro to tournament poker. This was technically K’s first real tourney too, but she had played tourney format in home games before, so she already had some feel for how tournament poker differs from cash game play. The tourney got under way with about 200+ players, and I didn’t catch much of anything in the first hour, so I had to steal a pot or two just to stay afloat. More garbage over the next couple hours with no memorable hands to speak of, and I eventually got blinded down to the point where I had to take a stand with pocket 5’s which ended up losing to AJ when a J came as the first card on board. Twoin had busted out shortly ahead of me but I think he enjoyed the experience; everybody treasures their first time :). But the real story was K. When I walked over to her table after I busted out, I was tickled to see her with a nice fortress of chips in front of her. I watched her for a bit and she was playing good solid poker. Even watched her automatically lay down A9 offsuit to a raiser and cold-caller ahead of her. No hesitation; way to go K! Unfortunately she didn’t finish in the money, but got really close, just a few places out. Pretty awesome for a first-timer! While we were waiting for her to finish the tourney, Twoin and I went and played some blackjack. I bought in for 700 and was down to the felt at one point and pulled off another one of my crazy comebacks, eventually winning it all back and I cashed out up $50. I certainly didn’t want to lose any serious money at the Taj since I wanted my playing time to be spent accruing points at the Borgata, so that was all the blackjack we played there.
After that it was off to the Borgata for some blackjack action. Got there around 3:45 and we had 6:00 dinner reservations at Mixx, so we only had a couple hours to kill before eating (we were all starving since none of us had breakfast). I got off to a nice start, eventually getting up over a grand in the first hour and was about to cash out when a guy across the table tossed me the cut card because I had been cutting to some great shoes up to that point. Oh what the hell I thought, why not play on since there was still an hour before dinner and it was so damn crowded there that I wouldn’t be able to get in on another table. Not too much happened for the next 45 minutes or so though, but my profits ground down to about +600 when I decided to go aggressive for the last few minutes since the worst that could happen is I would end even going into dinner. As it turns out, that’s exactly what happened. A couple of double downs where the dealer didn’t bust and my profit was gone. I cashed out for my buy-in and did a huge kamikaze shot with our tablemates since we had been having a blast together. Then off to dinner which was good, but not extraordinary. The ceviche was nice, but more like a sashimi of sea bass with the citrus squirted over the top. The seared tuna was executed well but we’ve had better, plus our dinner conversation covered Hawaiin dining so in contrast, the tuna in front of us seemed a little lackluster. The ribeye was probably the best dish, although there was a pleasant surprise on the duck entree- a little medallion of foie gras! Pretty surprising considering it was not mentioned in the dish’s description on the menu. We also had a couple of maki rolls, but nothing special. The biggest disappointment was what was supposed to be turbot over oxtail. They were out of turbot that day so they substituted salmon instead which seemed like a strange choice (could they have picked anything more different than turbot??). In any event the salmon was a bit overcooked for my taste and even more disappointing the shredded oxtail beneath it was a bit too salty and the strands a little tougher and chewier than oxtail should be. But me and Twoin already had a decent buzz going from all the drinks at the blackjack table, and we ordered two carafes of really nice sake with dinner. We paid for half the dinner tab with the points from our players cards and K was nice enough to pick of the rest.
With a full belly and a still-even bankroll we decided to go play some craps with K. Bad move; I lost 500 in probably 40 minutes. Oh well, back to the blackjack tables… I bought in for a grand and played for a while. Unfortunately K was sitting to my right and wasn’t a very experienced blackjack player and she killed me with a couple of incorrect plays drawing with a 13 against a dealer 5. In one case she stole the dealer’s bust card (-220 on that hand), and in the other stole my ten card and allowed the dealer to draw to a 20 when I had doubled down (that one really hurt as it was a $200 hand which I doubled to lose $400). So I eventually lost the rest of my chips and decided to take a break since I was down $1500 and had a bad position at the table. Eventually first base opened up so I bought in for $500 but ended up losing that after grinding it out for a bit. I decided that would be it, down $2k, let’s call it quits. I wandered around a bit until K asked if we felt like leaving. Twoin said sure, so we cashed out, probably around 1:30am. It’s all a bit hazy to me, but at some point we stopped to play some roulette too, where I won $400 in about 20 minutes. Then we were going to leave but the pit bosses had warned us that it was probably too treacherous to drive so we decided to see for ourselves before trying. We went to the lobby and tried stepping outside but the wind was whipping and the snow was blowing sideways with several inches of accumulation already. The glass door practically knocked me back inside as the wind blew it shut. Ok, so I guess we’re not leaving.
Eventually we went back to the blackjack pit and Twoin, who had been chatting it up with the pit bosses all night because he was drunk, asked to see if they could pull some strings and get us a room. They made a few calls but came back and said no luck. With nothing else to do, Twoin and I decided to sit back down for some more blackjack. K just pulled up a seat next to the table and began napping in her seat. Nice. I bought in for a grand and began playing standing up; partly just to stay awake and partly because I usually do better when standing for some reason. I was getting pretty dehydrated from all the drinking, but I ordered another kalhua and coffee (thanks to my poker chick Shydie for getting me hooked on those as the perfect waker-upper). I drank so much that day- beer, gin and tonics, the kamikaze shot, sake at dinner, kalhua and coffees and a lot of really good bloody maries (with extra olives, served to us by a smoking hot southeast asian looking waitress with a terrific body and an even better smile). But by around 3am, I figured I needed to stop drinking since I’d be driving in the morning, so after I finished my k&c I just drank hot tea and bottled water for the rest of the morning. Maybe sobering up helped too, because I started going on a mad run and I continued with my cutting to good shoes. Before I knew it, my $1k had turned into $3500 and that’s where I decided to cash out. So thanks to the snow storm keeping us there, I went from -$2000 to +$900. *clap clap clap*
K finished down about 230 and Twoin about the same, maybe closer to 300, and that included the poker tourney entry fees, so all in all, no harm done…except to Twoin’s liver cause he drank like a champ all day all night. Twoin’s isn’t usually what you’d call chatty, but he was so drunk he was talking to anyone and everyone about everything from arranged Indian marriages to big locks on designer handbags. Very entertaining. Anyway, we decided to grab a bite to eat at the Metropolitan before heading home. We had some fried shrimp, K had the chicken noodle soup, and Twoin and I had the clam chowder. I sucked down some cranberry juice too to try and rehydrate myself a bit. I was able to cover that meal with the points from my players card, and then it was time to hit the road, somewhere around 6am.
It was still dark out, but at least the snow had stopped. Freezing cold though, so I had to crank the heat. I think we made it about 20 miles when the heat in the car started dehydrating me so bad, coupled with my sleep deprivation that I started feeling queazy. I pulled off to the side of the road and got out to get some fresh air. Thought I might puke, but didn’t. The cold fresh air recharged me enough to drive on a bit, but I started feeling like shit again. I was dying to get to the next rest area, half falling asleep and half nauseous. We finally get to it and I just pull into the first parking spot I see which I guess was kind of far from the building, but I just needed to stop driving and shut my eyes before I got sick. I asked K if she could go get me some water and she was sweet enough to trudge out through the snow to do it for me. Meanwhile I shut down the engine and curled into a fetal position in my seat. K returned with the water and I drank some down and we agreed to just sleep for a bit before continuing. I think I slept for about 45 minutes and woke up when I had to pee. So I went inside the building to find the restroom, and when I came back, K said she woke up and had no idea where I had gone or how long I had been gone! Twoin however was undisturbed, having been passed out in the back seat since we left the Borgata. I took another big swig of water and was ready to drive again. By now the sun was up and the water had done wonders for me, so I was feeling good again. Just to be safe, I decided to just drive to the next rest area 25 miles away and get gas there instead of getting it at our current rest area. The 25 miles went slowly because of road conditions, but I was feeling fine. Apparently Twoin was not. We finally got to the next rest area and pulled up to the gas pumps. I rolled down the window to tell the attendant to fill it up and I guess that woke Twoin up. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw him sit up abruptly. He looked around, murmured something, then opened the door and stumbled out. I asked K, “What did he say?”. And she giggled and replied “He said he has to hurl”. Sure enough, he stumbled only a couple steps before puking into the snow with the gas station attendant looking on, unamused. Hahaha. Oh man, in retrospect, maybe clam chowder was NOT the best choice for breakfast after a day of alcohol abuse. 🙂 That was the finishing touch to quite a fun 27 hours.