My First Grown-Up Vacation (part nine in a series)
I took the first exit that had a gas station listed on the friendly blue sign. It in fact had three listed. And all three were closed, because it was after 11 PM by this point. Commence serious freaking out. Commence Mike getting mad at me for not filling up before we left. Commence feeling guilty. Get back on the highway and start hoping and praying.
All for naught, the next exit had a sign explicitly stating there was a 24-hour Mobil. So we went to that, and realized that McDonald’s is “now open ’til midnight or later,” and so we got some dinner. At 11:15 PM. But who’s counting.
It turns out that the drive down I-95 to Foxwoods is ridiculously long. I didn’t think Rhode Island was that large. And for fun, I totally got us lost in the Foxwoods complex.
We were absolutely exhausted when we arrived at the hotel, where they had saved a room for us – but not the kind I’d reserved! I was so angry, but too tired to make a fuss like I would have liked, so I did what any thoroughly emotionally and physically exhausted person would do. I cried. Not heaving sobs or anything, just straight tears. It sucked, and I was angry, but I was too tired to fight for anything, not even a free meal ticket, let alone a free room. At least I hadn’t paid full price for the room to begin with – Wampum rewards or whatever they’re called.
We went to our room, set the alarm for 5:00, and collapsed into a heap on the small bed, thoroughly pooped.
Small alarms probably went off in your head at this point. Why the hell would we be waking up at five o’clock in the morning the day after not getting to a bed until after one o’clock in the morning? Well, for a poker tournament, obviously!
Foxwoods has these $80 + 20 NLHE tournaments on Fridays (and most other weekdays) that I was exceptionally excited about. Not excited enough to not sleep through the alarm… but excited enough to wake up naturally at 5:30. Shower. Wake up Mike. Wait for Mike to shower. Check out of hotel. Drive over to the casino. Get duplicate Wampum cards since we forgot ours. Sign up for the tournament.
Well, now it was 7:00 and the tournament isn’t until 8:00. I had been counting on being able to have the breakfast buffet, which I think I read somewhere was pretty good, but that doesn’t open until 8:00! So we went to the one place in the casino serving food and I got a muffin and a juice. Mike was still asleep and so not hungry.
Eventually 8:00 rolled around, and I was sitting in seat 6 on table 1. I was extremely excited, and once I got through my first bought pot (I knew he had nothing, I just hoped he didn’t know I had nothing), I was settled enough. I was a slight chip leader at my table for quite a while, until the first bust out happened. This was when the gentleman to my right had his pocket aces busted by the gentleman two to his right’s pocket kings. Obviously kings-guy was now the chip leader. But that really would turn out not to matter much to me.
The person who replaced aces-guy was a very tall man. That was about all I knew about him when I got stuck in a pot with him. I flopped an openender when 9TJ hit the board with AQ in my hand. I bet a significant amount, hoping to just buy the pot from the two people already in it, who had checked to me. One left the pot quickly. The other… reraised all in. I had him covered, but it would only leave me with 8 big blinds or so if I called. Of course, it would only cost me about that many – for a pot that was already well over what would make good pot odds. Really, I forget the math. And maybe I did the math wrong. And maybe I should have listened to my gut that was telling me “He has KQ – FOLD!” Or, maybe I should just forget the whole thing and move on.
Which is what I tried to do after he showed the KQ, and my saving K never showed up on the turn or river. The rest of the table was routing for me – we were all friends now, and he was the intruding newcomer. I knew it was all-in time, so when my next hand was AJ, I just did it. There had been a couple limpers before me, including KQ-guy, they all folded, except for him. He called saying he had to gamble. His gamble paid off when he hit a baby flush on the flop, and I was out.
I checked on Mike, who seemed to be doing pretty well, and went over to sign up for a little ring game action. I knew I would be blowing off money there, but I pretty much needed to get the tilt over with. So I just blew through a small stack of chips while constantly getting second best hands. Not my best poker day ever. But it was quite fun.
Since I was already on a -EV day, I figured why not go for some roulette while Mike keeps beating on the tournament. For some reason, my luck chose that moment to turn around, and I went up $17. Sweet! I also had quite a bit of fun doing it. There were some friendly people and the dealer (I guess that’s what you’d call him) was very entertaining. Mike joined me after he busted out of the tournament, but his luck didn’t hold out from our last trip where he won $40 or something ridiculous like that. (We are not high rollers. We really just go to Foxwoods because it’s fun, and expect to “pay” the casino a certain amount for the entertainment before we leave.)
I decided to try out some Caribbean Stud poker with my new winnings. My parents had talked quite a show about how awesome it is. This is also a -EV game, but it seems like it would be a slow leak, and possibly fun. After tipping the dealer, I was down $3, so basically even. But it actually was kind of fun.
We went to the buffet for lunch, and I took advantage of the peel-and-eat shrimp and topped it off with a staggering waffle sundae. We dumped some remaining quarters into the slot machines, and decided that we were thoroughly exhausted. We packed ourselves into the car, and drove on home. Mike slept in the car. I stopped to pick up the mail from the post office (it was a ridiculously huge pile, and of course it was mostly spam).
And then we were home.
So…wow…sounds like you had one heck of a fun trip. Go poker!
I have a little bit of an addiciton to poker. It’s really a shame I’m not particularly good at it.
Hmmmm. “Little bit” and “addiction” are usually two concepts I place as mutually exclusive. We’re not going to have to stage an intervention for you are we? ;-) Just kidding, but I do think it’s interesting to hear how your winnings/losings go if only ’cause eventually I may be going through Vegas on my way to Cali (perhaps Thanksgiving) and I may stop to play a game or two. Just not Texas Hold ‘em, I just don’t think of that as “real” poker. I don’t like the games where you share the majority of the up cards with other players at the table.
More of a Stud guy then. I actually have a hard time with Stud games – there are too many cards to pay attention to.
My real favorite is Omaha Hi/Lo, which does still have the shared cards, but the math and hand selection is more difficult. I’ve just not gotten good enough at that to play at Foxwoods. There is generally only one low limit table playing O8, and I’ve heard that everyone who plays there is an Omaha specialist. Someday, maybe.