The itch must be scratched

With Ali recuperating in Ct. from her recent wisdom tooth removal (poor girl), the lure of AC and the 10-20 Two Way game was strong. I made calls to the usual suspects to join but only got good responses from Dawn, KJ and Bacini Mary. Oh, but this is a good crew to go with.
Dawn got us all on the road by 8:10am, only a few minutes past our scheduled departure time. Seriously? Dawn was on time? I made a mental note of the date for the monument to be built later. (I brace myself for 'assface' comments)

We had a good drive down, not that I remember. I had taken my pillow with me and it proved useful to wipe away about an hour of the trip. Sweet! I fell asleep to the sounds of Dawn's legendary IPOD playlist, which includes a wide mix of hip-hop, R&B and showtunes. Bacini Mary, an avowed enemy of all things Broadway, was rolling her eyes with fierceness. She was sitting in the front and I was in the back, but I could feel the eye rolls from back there, I promise. Soon enough though, our happy place was in view. The Borgata! Everyone seemed excited to play and Dawn, KJ and I were sitting at the 10-20 OE game at 10:45a.

I was hit by the deck in the first hour. Wolloped.

In about an hour's time, I was up $650. I entertained the thought, briefly, of getting up and calling it a day, but one hour is just not enough time. It's just not. I played very tight and aggressive when it warranted it and added another $140 to my profit to peak at $790. Dawn, on the other hand, was taking brutal beat after brutal beat. She lost multiple large pots on the river to people who were usually going low and backed into a high, or vice versa. Just really bad luck. After two buy-ins were lost in this manner, she stormed off to collect herself at a $1-$2 table. I'm not quite sure she did particularly well there either, given that I spotted her watching a Simpsons episode on her IPOD while she played. Not a good sign. KJ was doing all right, sitting to my left. After an initial rough run, he went on a streak of $500 to finish up a few hundo by the day's end.

As the day wore on, I lost a few big pots that started to get me nervous. My big profit was starting to dwindle down and I set a cap to myself of $500. If my profit wore down to $500, I would get and leave and lock it in for the day. I was down to $550 when I scooped a pot to bring me to $650 but then I lost a heartbreaker. I had JJA5 in my hand with a suited Ace of diamonds. The flop was J56. I bet and actually got raised! I re-raised and a few people came in. This was a kill pot so I committed a lot here. The turn was a blank, maybe a Queen and I bet again. In addition to my set of Jacks, I now had the nut flush draw. This time, two callers came in. The river was the 4 of hearts and my soul crushed when a woman in early position, who had been limp calling the whole way, bet out! I looked at her and she broke out into a nervous smile and said, "I'm sorry, that was dirty. I can't even hide it". The woman in front of her called and KJ and I looked at each other. He said, "Oh my god, that was the worst card". I mucked and sure enough, the woman showed 23 for the straight to the 6 and 65 low, scooping the $400 + pot. THAT. ONE. HURT.

But not as bad as the one that got Dawn off the table. She also had JJ in her hand when the board went J65. She bet the whole way, into a multi-way kill pot with multiple callers that might have had $700 in it before all was said and done. Turn was a T. More betting and Dawn was all in. Dawn turned to me and said, "I need a Jack to win". Her luck was so bad, she was calling for the stone nuts to win! River was the dirtiest Queen you ever saw. Some guy with A2KT, looking for the nut low, probably to get sixthed, backed into the nut Broadway straight and scooped the entire thing. UGLY.

We left at 5PM, early because our driver said so and that's that. The ride back was somewhat uneventful, punctuated by the late revelation that Dawn has NEVER heard the song "Stairway to Heaven". EVER. Mary and I couldn't and wouldn't believe it. We played it for her and she dutifully sat and listened to the whole thing, only commenting once that "Styx is better". But at the end of that long and glorious guitar solo, as the last haunting note faded away, she gave us the bad news.

"Nope. Never heard it."

I made a possibly racist comment about Blacks really having their own culture, but she ignored me. So I changed tack.

"I bet you've heard Kashmir. P.Diddy used it in his song 'Come With Me'"
"Are you saying I would know P.Diddy because I'm black?"
"Yes"
So I played it for her. After a few seconds of the opening riff, the judgement came in:
"Oh yeah, I have heard this before"
{Sigh}