Last night, I came home from work at about 5:30...and promptly fell asleep on the couch. What a great nap it was, too. Not one, not two, not even three hours. But 4 full hours later, I woke up to find the night mostly gone. I was going to complete the experience by going to sleep early, but I got an email from Darko that he, Wendy and Carol were all at the new Soho room, which I will call The Virginia room. Far be it from me to give up the opportunity to experience a new room, so I high-tailed over there.
There was a bit of confusion getting in. Darko had said to call him when I got there so he could come out and get me, so I did. But as i was waiting, another gentlemen, who looked vaguely familiar, possibly from the Good Look club, wandered up to the same address. At that exact moment, a guy opened the door, looked at the other guy and asked him in. Uh, oh. I think I've been overlooked. So I called up Darko again and sure enough, he had sent out the guy to pick up someone, "with glasses". Well, the other guy had glasses too. But the confusion was cleared up quickly.
I got into a small apartment with 3 tables awkwardly cramped into 3 different little rooms. The place had a very speakeasy feel to it, with the subterannean entrance and the guy at the door letting people in cautiously. But when I turned the corner and saw Carol's smiling face, all the anxiety melted away.
There were 9 or 10 players maximum throughout the whole night, just one table. But it was juicy. There were two guys in town from Colorado and they were playing the role of 'whale' for the night. Buy-in after buy-in came out of their pockets and it all went away. They bet strong on middle pairs with flushes and straight on board and it was beautiful. Or it was for someone else. I only doubled through them once, when I flopped top set. Then my money got frittered away on three big hands.
Hand 1: I have AQo. Flop comes Q42 with two hearts. I bet, I get raised and I look over at his stack. It's short, thankfully. I push and he calls. He's got Q4. Ok, it is what it is.
Hand 2: I have AhQh. Wendy leads out UTG+1 with a raise to $12. About 6 people call. Flop comes Q78. Wendy bets $30. I get one caller to my right. I consider raising, but I get suspicious. Right now, though, Wendy is representing a good Ace. I call instead of pushing. The turn comes a rag, maybe a 2. Wendy leads out $130. The first caller folds and it's to me. I agonize over it. Set? Two pair? The betting is still looking like a good Ace, so I make a call that's against my better instincts and we check down the river, which is harmless. She had 7s8s.
Hand 3: I have KQo and I limp from UTG+1 with a $6 straddle in effect. No one raises and the flop comes KJ8 with 2 clubs. Danger, Will Robinson. But I have to see where I'm at so I bet out $18, just enough to make someone lay down with nothing, I'm hoping. I get one caller, whom I put on a flush draw. The turn comes a 9 and I put out another $22. He raises up to $75 and I know he's got me. I lay down, but not before I'm able to talk him into showing me Jc9c.
So, I'm losing with good top pair hands. Meanwhile, some action fish in the middle of the table is getting paid off left and right with all sorts of trash. $125 pots won with King high are not uncommon. The sickest hand I saw was this:
I have AQo in middle position (*that* hand again). It gets raised to $15 and a few people call, including me. By the time it gets to the BB, who just sat down and is playing his very first hand, he raises to $75. Fishy guy in the middle calls. Carol, to my right, agonizes and folds 88. I also agonize and fold my hand. The flop comes down a sickening AQ5, rainbow. BB shoves all in for his remaining $210 and fishy guy calls! I figure for sure I'm going to be looking at two pair over set, but oh no. BB turns over 66 and fishy guy turns over...Kd7d. Yeah, that's right. He called $75 preflop with K7 and then called an all in with King high and no flush draw. I wanted to puke on the fucking table. Do I have to finish the story of who won? Oh, yeah. The Fish rivered a seven to take down the pot. There is no justice in poker. There, I've said it.
Other memorable hands that I can remember:
Darko, with AdTd flopped Ac8d6d. His opponent, Mr. Whale, had AA. When Whale shoved, John agonized but made the call, motioning to the dealer to stop after the turn so he could ask to run business. Well, the turn was a diamond and John showed his nut flush, but there were still boat draws. So he explained what doing business meant and they did, 3 times. Each time, the board didn't pair and John avoided a bullet.
Fishy guy and the guy with glasses got involved in a huge pot too. Fishy guy had Jd9d and flopped a flush draw. The board was 8dTdAs. There was some betting on the flop and the turn came a 7c. At that point, all the money went in. The fishy guy had the straight with the flush re-draw. Guy with glasses turned up AdQd for top pair with a good kicker and the flush draw. But most of the diamonds were out for this guy. 6d gives Fish the straight flush, so there are 6 more diamonds in the deck and that's it. That's about a 10-1 shot at best. but wouldn't you know it, it hit on the river. Fishy guy stormed out with a lot of frustration and the rest of the table was equally frustrated. One of the guys defended the fishy guy as being a "good player" and he *did* play that one perfectly, but this is the same guy who called a preflop raise to $75 with Kd7d, so I wasn't saying a word.
The last big hand was, fittingly, the last hand of the night. Carol and two other guys (Guy #1 and Guy #2 for the purpose of this story) all put big money into the pot with the board ended up being 356 on the flop, a 2 on the turn and a King on the river. Carol had 33, Guy #1 had 55 and Guy #2 had A4! Wow. Poor Carol. Her sets really weren't working out tonight. Oh, except for the time she rivered a boat playing 25o! Oh, yeah, The Darko scores again.
I ended up down $300, Carol about the same and Darko and Wendy scored big. King of the Mountain is going to be a quite a climb. {Sigh}
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
The return of Dustin
Tuesday night saw the return of “Justin” Dustin, who has been away from our table for some time. Dustin works with Scott St. G., so he really has no excuse not to come, but I pushed him to explain himself anyway. “Uh, I’ve been going to the gym a lot”. Ok, doofus, whatever. Me, I know I’m going to die of a heart attack slumped onto a poker table, still holding on to my nut flush draw with one card to come. But that’s just me.
I played tight both tourneys last night, mostly because I was card dead. I’ve pretty much given up trying to make too many moves, given the competition and have chosen the path of “wait for good cards, raise it up, and hope you flop”. I gave up lots of middle pocket pairs when the action was being pushed very high. By the time the first tourney was down to 6 players, I only had about 1700 in chips and I needed to double up. Abbie obliged me by putting me all in with her AT. I peeked at my first card, Ace of clubs. My second card? Ace of spades. Uh, I call? Once I doubled up, I felt a little more comfortable, but Abbie and Scott St. G. both had monster stacks. Until Scott made his patented “Poker Idiot” bust out by dumping all his chips to Abbie. Abbie was in the big blind and Scott had limped into the pot along with a few others. Flop was K2rag, I don’t remember the suits. It checked all around and the turn was a 5. Scott bet out and Abbie raised it up. There was about 2500 in the pot and Scott re-raised all in for about 4000 more. A huge play, which Abbie called down immediately. Scott showed KQ for the slow played top pair, big kicker. Abbie showed THE DARKO (25o) for bottom two pair. She was able to avoid rivering a second pair and she felted Scott to take about 70% of the chips in play. It was down to Abbie, Liezl, Krishnan and myself. I was in a tenuous second place, but Liezl kept limping into pots on the button, not allowing Abbie to give me a walk on my big blind. And then she kept firing out, taking the pots. Darnit, how am I supposed to keep building my chip lead if I have to give up my blinds all the time?!? ;-) Then I went completely card-dead, including a run of three hands in a row when my hole cards were 93o! But Liezl managed to donk off her chips to Abbie when she pushed with a weak Ace vs. Abbie’s AA and Krishnan and I were in the money. I had Krishnan slightly outchipped but I managed to lost to Abbie with an A7 and I was out in 3rd. Krishnan and Abbie chopped, with Abbie giving Krishnan an extra $5 to give up the fight. He was outchipped more than 10-1, so I think it was a prudent move.
In other news, we had a lot of new players at the table last night. Tony, Olga, Alice and Art all made their first appearance at the Wall Street game. And with the appearance of Olga and Alice, we have officially taken the mantle of the Hottest home game in New York. By ‘Hottest’, I am referring of course to degree of attractiveness, not temperature. The designation, formerly held by the IHO crew, has been tipping our way in recent days with the frequent appearance of Stephane and Mary from said crew at the game. And with Liezl, Olga, Vivian, Alice, Lana, Wendy and Carol, we’re way over the top now. It’s like a Maxim photo shoot for god’s sake! As PP said last night, “Wow”. (If I left your name off of this list, it was only because I forgot. You’re beautiful too.)
Oh, other features of the first tourney included Wendy going out with QQ on the 3rd hand when she ran into Viet’s AA. Whoops. The second tourney had a similar hand with Darko, who had his QQ also run into Aces. The question was raised as to whether you can get away from QQ if there is heavy pre-flop action or if the flop is ragged undercards, as it was in both Wendy and Darko’s cases. My vote was no, you can’t. My theory is that in a short-stacked single-table turbo tourney, like we run, the third nuts pre-flop is as close to gold as you can get. If you’re worried about running into a category 1 hand, you can try to see the flop as cheaply as possible and check the texture, but if you have to try to double through with something, QQ is a good possibility. This thought process was running through my mind in the second tourney when I picked up TT UTG with blinds at 200/400. I had about 2300 in chips and instead of pushing with a medium pocket pair, I decided to limp and either re-raise all in on a raiser or see a flop and hope for the best. Wendy came out and raised it to 1400 and it folded to me. Decision time. There are only 4 hands that are beating me at this point pre-flop and I was hoping Wendy had AK, AQ or something similar when I pushed all in. She lamented that I had “better not have Aces” or she was going to cry. She flipped up QQ (again) but this time it held up. It was strange, given her luck at the table lately, how natural it was to assume a Ten would flop. But no such luck on my part. Paulie had another monster run of cards, showing me and Darko QQ to take down a good pot without a showdown. The very next hand, he felted a hapless player with KK! Paulie went on to take down the tourney with our new player Art coming in a respectable second place. Scott St. G. came in 3rd to round out the finishing group. It was only about 11 and it would have been fine for me if everyone left, but there was much talk of a cash game. However, by the time the dust settled, only Darko, Wendy, Paulie and Tony stuck around. No cash game. “We could play Omaha,” chimed in Paulie. Oh, allright then. So we played low-limit Omaha for 90 minutes or so, playing 1/2 with 1/1 blinds. Tony, who innocently claimed to not know how to play Omaha, managed to take $22 in profit. It helped him that we only played Omaha high, because there were plenty of hands I managed to get the nut low and could do anything with it, though I did scrape together a whopping $9 profit.
I played tight both tourneys last night, mostly because I was card dead. I’ve pretty much given up trying to make too many moves, given the competition and have chosen the path of “wait for good cards, raise it up, and hope you flop”. I gave up lots of middle pocket pairs when the action was being pushed very high. By the time the first tourney was down to 6 players, I only had about 1700 in chips and I needed to double up. Abbie obliged me by putting me all in with her AT. I peeked at my first card, Ace of clubs. My second card? Ace of spades. Uh, I call? Once I doubled up, I felt a little more comfortable, but Abbie and Scott St. G. both had monster stacks. Until Scott made his patented “Poker Idiot” bust out by dumping all his chips to Abbie. Abbie was in the big blind and Scott had limped into the pot along with a few others. Flop was K2rag, I don’t remember the suits. It checked all around and the turn was a 5. Scott bet out and Abbie raised it up. There was about 2500 in the pot and Scott re-raised all in for about 4000 more. A huge play, which Abbie called down immediately. Scott showed KQ for the slow played top pair, big kicker. Abbie showed THE DARKO (25o) for bottom two pair. She was able to avoid rivering a second pair and she felted Scott to take about 70% of the chips in play. It was down to Abbie, Liezl, Krishnan and myself. I was in a tenuous second place, but Liezl kept limping into pots on the button, not allowing Abbie to give me a walk on my big blind. And then she kept firing out, taking the pots. Darnit, how am I supposed to keep building my chip lead if I have to give up my blinds all the time?!? ;-) Then I went completely card-dead, including a run of three hands in a row when my hole cards were 93o! But Liezl managed to donk off her chips to Abbie when she pushed with a weak Ace vs. Abbie’s AA and Krishnan and I were in the money. I had Krishnan slightly outchipped but I managed to lost to Abbie with an A7 and I was out in 3rd. Krishnan and Abbie chopped, with Abbie giving Krishnan an extra $5 to give up the fight. He was outchipped more than 10-1, so I think it was a prudent move.
In other news, we had a lot of new players at the table last night. Tony, Olga, Alice and Art all made their first appearance at the Wall Street game. And with the appearance of Olga and Alice, we have officially taken the mantle of the Hottest home game in New York. By ‘Hottest’, I am referring of course to degree of attractiveness, not temperature. The designation, formerly held by the IHO crew, has been tipping our way in recent days with the frequent appearance of Stephane and Mary from said crew at the game. And with Liezl, Olga, Vivian, Alice, Lana, Wendy and Carol, we’re way over the top now. It’s like a Maxim photo shoot for god’s sake! As PP said last night, “Wow”. (If I left your name off of this list, it was only because I forgot. You’re beautiful too.)
Oh, other features of the first tourney included Wendy going out with QQ on the 3rd hand when she ran into Viet’s AA. Whoops. The second tourney had a similar hand with Darko, who had his QQ also run into Aces. The question was raised as to whether you can get away from QQ if there is heavy pre-flop action or if the flop is ragged undercards, as it was in both Wendy and Darko’s cases. My vote was no, you can’t. My theory is that in a short-stacked single-table turbo tourney, like we run, the third nuts pre-flop is as close to gold as you can get. If you’re worried about running into a category 1 hand, you can try to see the flop as cheaply as possible and check the texture, but if you have to try to double through with something, QQ is a good possibility. This thought process was running through my mind in the second tourney when I picked up TT UTG with blinds at 200/400. I had about 2300 in chips and instead of pushing with a medium pocket pair, I decided to limp and either re-raise all in on a raiser or see a flop and hope for the best. Wendy came out and raised it to 1400 and it folded to me. Decision time. There are only 4 hands that are beating me at this point pre-flop and I was hoping Wendy had AK, AQ or something similar when I pushed all in. She lamented that I had “better not have Aces” or she was going to cry. She flipped up QQ (again) but this time it held up. It was strange, given her luck at the table lately, how natural it was to assume a Ten would flop. But no such luck on my part. Paulie had another monster run of cards, showing me and Darko QQ to take down a good pot without a showdown. The very next hand, he felted a hapless player with KK! Paulie went on to take down the tourney with our new player Art coming in a respectable second place. Scott St. G. came in 3rd to round out the finishing group. It was only about 11 and it would have been fine for me if everyone left, but there was much talk of a cash game. However, by the time the dust settled, only Darko, Wendy, Paulie and Tony stuck around. No cash game. “We could play Omaha,” chimed in Paulie. Oh, allright then. So we played low-limit Omaha for 90 minutes or so, playing 1/2 with 1/1 blinds. Tony, who innocently claimed to not know how to play Omaha, managed to take $22 in profit. It helped him that we only played Omaha high, because there were plenty of hands I managed to get the nut low and could do anything with it, though I did scrape together a whopping $9 profit.
Labor Day Weekend recap #3
Paulie, Darko, Wendy and LJ all drove down together Friday afternoon, but I couldn’t make it out of work until 5:30. So after an uneventful cab ride up to the Port Authority, I hopped the 6:30PM bus to Resorts and made it down to AC in 2.25 hours, with a stop at Cheesequake. Pretty damn good time for a holiday weekend. The crew were already playing deep in a tourney at the Showboat, except for John who had busted out early (surprise, surprise). So I took the opportunity to corral him and Paulie into playing low limit Omaha/8 at the Taj next door. Luckily, there was a game opening up when we arrived and we all managed to sit at the table together. It was a blast. The O/8 game at the Taj is low limit and as such attracts the same group of crusty regulars every time I see it. We were sitting at the 2/4 table, although there was a 5/10 table also running, but that’s way beyond us just yet for O/8, a game we’re just learning.
The characters at the table were right out of a movie. There was friendly Mike, who lectured on us on some of the finer tips on how to play, while simultaneously slowly whittling his stack down to the felt. There was the Greek man in the hat who had a habit of saying, “Boom!” in a thick accent. I liked him because he called me a “good player” when I saw him again on Monday. J There was the cantankerous middle aged Jewish woman who seemed to complain about EVERYTHING: “It’s so cold in here”, “I can’t believe they sat a new dealer here”, “Hurry up, you’re taking forever!”, “This place is a dump”, “Are we ever going to see a waitress?”. And, of course, the eager to learn Wall Street crew. The game was fun, although I can’t remember any specific hands. And really, at 2/4, does it matter? I liked that Darko really enjoyed himself because he usually has a real disdain for limit poker. But he commented later that he likes to play O/8 because it really sharpens your skill at reading boards, outs, and putting players on a hand. He’s right, too. I’m also new at the game, so I can’t say with any expertise, but it seems to me that a lot of money is won or lost by being able to put players who are pushing the action on whether or not they’re going high, low or both. If you have a middling high hand, say top set on a flushing board, but an opponent starts raising a multi-way pot when an innocuous 3 hits the board, you might put him on a low hand, especially if the 3 also makes a low possible. In that case, your top set might still be good. There are so many combinations and so many ways to win or lose that your reading skills become very very important. And in low limit, the check/raise play is so rarely effective and so rarely used, that you can get very accurate information when a formerly passive player starts betting or raising when a specific card comes out. A goo example of this happened at our own table in Tuesday’s cash game. The last hand of the night, the flop was JT7, with 2 diamonds. I had been check calling pre-flop and on the flop with 68 and two lower rags. When the non-diamond 9 hit on the turn to give me the low straight, I started the betting with the $4 big bet. Carol, who is an excellent player, immediately muttered, “What a sick card to come out”. She knew IMMEDIATELY that I had made a straight. It was the only story that made sense of my first-to-act bet. Of course, she might have put me on the KQ, rather than the 68, but she put me on a straight regardless and she mucked her cards when it got to her. She’s a super smart player because she puts her read of the player together with the betting patterns and the board to tell what’s in that player’s hand. That skill translates well to ALL poker games, not just O/8 or Hold’Em. And that’s why Darko loved his time spent at O/8, even if we played for about 6 hours and he made a whopping $15 profit.
The characters at the table were right out of a movie. There was friendly Mike, who lectured on us on some of the finer tips on how to play, while simultaneously slowly whittling his stack down to the felt. There was the Greek man in the hat who had a habit of saying, “Boom!” in a thick accent. I liked him because he called me a “good player” when I saw him again on Monday. J There was the cantankerous middle aged Jewish woman who seemed to complain about EVERYTHING: “It’s so cold in here”, “I can’t believe they sat a new dealer here”, “Hurry up, you’re taking forever!”, “This place is a dump”, “Are we ever going to see a waitress?”. And, of course, the eager to learn Wall Street crew. The game was fun, although I can’t remember any specific hands. And really, at 2/4, does it matter? I liked that Darko really enjoyed himself because he usually has a real disdain for limit poker. But he commented later that he likes to play O/8 because it really sharpens your skill at reading boards, outs, and putting players on a hand. He’s right, too. I’m also new at the game, so I can’t say with any expertise, but it seems to me that a lot of money is won or lost by being able to put players who are pushing the action on whether or not they’re going high, low or both. If you have a middling high hand, say top set on a flushing board, but an opponent starts raising a multi-way pot when an innocuous 3 hits the board, you might put him on a low hand, especially if the 3 also makes a low possible. In that case, your top set might still be good. There are so many combinations and so many ways to win or lose that your reading skills become very very important. And in low limit, the check/raise play is so rarely effective and so rarely used, that you can get very accurate information when a formerly passive player starts betting or raising when a specific card comes out. A goo example of this happened at our own table in Tuesday’s cash game. The last hand of the night, the flop was JT7, with 2 diamonds. I had been check calling pre-flop and on the flop with 68 and two lower rags. When the non-diamond 9 hit on the turn to give me the low straight, I started the betting with the $4 big bet. Carol, who is an excellent player, immediately muttered, “What a sick card to come out”. She knew IMMEDIATELY that I had made a straight. It was the only story that made sense of my first-to-act bet. Of course, she might have put me on the KQ, rather than the 68, but she put me on a straight regardless and she mucked her cards when it got to her. She’s a super smart player because she puts her read of the player together with the betting patterns and the board to tell what’s in that player’s hand. That skill translates well to ALL poker games, not just O/8 or Hold’Em. And that’s why Darko loved his time spent at O/8, even if we played for about 6 hours and he made a whopping $15 profit.
Labor Day Weekend recap #2
In a previous post, I announced my intention to visit every legal poker room in the country. Since I was going down to AC this weekend, it seemed natural to knock them out. There are, by my count, 10 poker rooms in Atlantic City, although one is used for tournaments only. These would be:
The Hilton
Bally's
Borgata
Caesars
Harrah's
Resorts
Showboat
Tropicana
The Taj Mahal
The Wild, Wild West (adjacent to Bally's used for tourneys only)
I was able to visit 7 of these and get my obligatory dollar chips from each one. In addition, I played at least one button round at each casino, booking an 'offical' visit. I even got photo of all of the poker rooms, except for Harrah's where the security guard told me he would have to "break my camera and confiscate the film" if he caught me taking a photo. Um, number one it's digital so there's no film, you gangster. Number two, if you take the 'film', isn't breaking the camera going a little overboard, you nazi ape? Just saying…
So, the 7 casinos I visited during the trip were The Hilton, Borgata, Harrah's, Resorts, Showboat, Tropicana and The Taj. Incidentally, I will, at some point soon, be putting up a website with a custom google map and links to all my reviews of the different poker rooms I'm visiting. Watch for the link in an upcoming post sometime in the next few weeks. In the meantime, here's the poor man's version of the poker room reviews.
The Borgata is the nicest hotel, and the poker room is on par with any of the big ones in Vegas, but it's SO big that it loses points with me. The room is slightly cramped (though the very tall ceilings give it an airy feeling) but the tables are top notch, the dealers are excellent and the chairs are by far the best in the city. But, on Labor Day Weekend of all times, the waitresses were insanely overworked. There were only 2 girls working about 30 tables in my section of the room and getting a drink was a major hassle. But the action at the Borgata is hot. It attracts all the tourist players, so the play is very weak and loose. There are also a good variety of games going, but it's mostly geared toward high limit players. There were no low-limit Omaha games going, but there was a 30-60 Omaha game and there was a waiting list for the active 200/400 Stud table! Also, I *hate* the brush desk at the Borgata. You come to the front of the room and wait in line to give your initials to the woman to be put on a list. There are so many games going that the screen showing the games sometimes has to cycle for 3 minutes before the screen with the games you're interested in pops up. Then, they call your initials out on the floor, but it's so loud on the floor, you sometimes can't hear it. Then you have to flag down somebody who works there and lock the seat up for you, but sometimes they only give you 25 seconds or so to find them, then they go to the next person on the list and you're outta luck! Once you've sat down though, the experience is pretty enjoyable. All the tables have in-table shufflers, which speed the game up a bit, and the chairs are a wonderful change from the other rooms. In addition, the waitresses are "Vegas-Quality" in terms of looks and can make for some nice eye candy. Also, since the room attracts young and hip tourists, the players themselves can be very attractive. The only other detraction I would note are the chips. I HATE them. The chips are plastic coated, not the traditional clay chips, with a weighted insert to give them some heft, but they are a bit on the light side. The worst part of the design is that the middle circle of the chip is ever so slightly recessed, and the resulting gap forms an airtight seal when the chips are stacked. This has the effect of the chips sticking together. Most people think, as I once did, that there is a magnetized chip of some sort which makes the chips stick. But I broke open one of the chips this weekend and it just ain't so. But shuffling the chips is a pain as a result and if you can't chip shuffle, what are you going to do when you don't have a hand, godammit?!? I rate the Borgata an 8/10 overall. They lost points on their chips, the brush desk and the noise level in the room.
The Hilton is a perfectly fine room, except that most night I go there, there isn't a decent game to be found. Usually, in my experience, there are only 2 or 3 tables going and the action on them is anemic. I do like the tournaments though, because they're relatively cheap and they don't have antes, which makes for a longer tourney and give players much more play. The tables have recently been upgraded, but the players are generally older and crabbier and the dealers tend to suck. The room does have 3 outstanding features though. The first is the huge bay window which looks West out over the city. It's not a beautiful view or anything but it's a welcome sight to see the sky at all in a poker room, which are usually dungeon-like affairs. The second great feature is a noodle bar, adjacent to the room, which serves up pretty decent noodle bowls, though you have to get them yourself. The third great feature, for me anyway, is the Asian gaming pit which is about 10 steps away from the poker room. Since the main gaming floor is downstairs from the poker area, having the Pai-Gow tables (my favorite non-poker gaming activity) nearby is a big boon to me. When I'm not feeling it at poker, and I want to de-stress from a bad beat, Pai-Gow can't be beat. I rate The Hilton a 5/10 overall. They lost points on their lack of ability to pull players into the room as well as their generally crappy dealers and non-existent floor staff.
Harrah's is in the marina area, and is the next casino over from Borgata, although you can't really walk there. The hotel is equivalent to the others on the boardwalk but the poker room is pretty unique. Instead of being one large room, the room curves and undulates so it feels more like a whole bunch of small and intimate pockets where poker happens to be played. The tables are perfectly nice although the chairs are on the cheap end. I never had a problem with the dealers there, and they are generally talkative and friendly. The play is pretty weak overall although I hear whispers that it gets sharky at times, though I've never seen that. The room is very pretty, with lots of pretty tiling to be distracted by as well as TV's, framed photos, etc… But the room is fairly small overall. Unlike other rooms, where being small feels like they stuck a poker room in as an afterthought, the room has the feel of being homey instead. I like the concept. I rate Harrah's 6/10. They lose points on not haivng enough types of games and on being at the ass-end of AC. Also, the security guard is a nazi pig who threatened to break my camera if I took a picture.
Resorts is the cruddiest and crappiest poker room in the entire city. I almost can't count the number of things wrong with it. It's tiny (maybe 8 tables) and it's adjacent to a smoking area in the casino and no there's no partition. About 10 minutes into my session, my eyes started to water up and I could only stand another 30 minutes or so before I picked up and left. The tables are just average and the chairs about the same. The dealers suck and couldn't care less, in addition to not knowing what they're doing. A guy exposed his winning cards on a hand but didn't show all the table before he mucked. The dealer took the cards and I asked to see them while they were in his hands. The dealer mucked the cards, started shuffling again and said to me, "He had a King". That's it?!? I continued my inquest. "What else, what suit?" Nothing from the dealer. He didn't say anything else and just kept dealing. It sucked donkey dick. I rate the Resorts room 3/10. They lost points on the size of the room, the location next to a smoking area, the crappy equipment, the piss-poor dealers and the lack of anything but 2/4 limit and 1-2 NL. They only got a 3, rather than a 2, because they're *right* on the boardwalk, which is within sight of the poker room, and you can even catch a view of the boardwalk if you're angled just right. Plus, the only Pai-Gow table in the entire casino is 15 feet away from the poker room.
Showboat is quickly becoming my favorite room in the city. It's relatively small, maybe 24 tables, half of which are usually used in tourneys, but the tourneys are top-notch and the staff is super friendly and competent. The tables are wonderful, with in-table shufflers, and the chairs are almost as nice as the Borgata. The room is across from the House of Blues concert venue, so on rare ocassions, you can actually hear some good tunes coming through the wall, like the night I was there and Twisted Sister was playing. :-) The tournaments are the big draw at the Showboat. $125 on Saturday night gets you 10,000 in chips (or was it 15,000) and 25-30 minute blind levels. The Wall Street crew usually has at least one member cashing in these tourneys and the structure allows for a lot of play. Cash isn't quite as good, with 2/4, 3/6 and 1-2 NL being the only games offered, BUT, it's adjancent and adjoining the Taj, which has every low limit game under the sun. The only other detraction I can think of for Showboat is the low ceiling which give the room more claustraphobia than is strictly necessary. I rate the Showboat 7/10. They lost points for the small room, the low ceiling and the dearth of games.
The Tropicana (or 'The Trop') is my favorite card room, but only for sentimental reasons. This was the first place I ever played in AC and was my 'home casino' for many years. There are some very good points to the room though. Their brush desk is the best in AC. Instead of using the newfangled Queue computerized system, they use the old school dry erase board with overhead cameras trained on it. The camera feeds are then fed to monitors in the room so you can see where you are. Floor staff promptly seats players whose names get called and it's actually audible! The dealers are competent and friendly (I even got asked out by one once! A woman no less!!!) and the room has a huge number of tables. The equipment is only so-so, with the tables showing their age and the chairs in bad need of an upgrade, but the sheer size of the room compensates. In addition, they're good about getting lots of different games going and it's not too hard to get a table. Plus, the Trop offers, in my opinion, the best game in the whole city, which is the 'Pink Game'. The Pink Game is 7.50/15 Limit Hold'em and is so named because the only chips used to bet are $2.50 chips, which are Pink in color. Bets are called out not by their amount but by the number of chips bet (3, 6, 9, etc…). Action is loose and there is just the right mix of sharks and tourists to keep it fun. Also, though it rarely runs, the Trop is one of the few rooms in AC to run Omaha/8 AND low limit at that. So it has a leg up on some other rooms in that respect. I rate the Trop 7/10 overall. The lose points because the room is somewhat grimy and crowded and the waitresses are notably slow.
Which leaves The Taj Mahal. The Taj is an interesting case, because until Borgata came to town, they were the biggest and best poker room in Atlantic City, or even the East Coast. At one time, they were considered among the best in the world. It's no mistake that in the movie Rounders, when Mike and Worm go to AC for a night of poker, they end up at The Taj. It was the gold standard for many years, but times have changed for the worse. Gone are the days when high-rollers would play at The Taj ("where the sand turns to gold"). I remember seeing roped off areas featuring small tables of 300-600 limit when I went 10 years ago but I haven't seen a game over 20-40 there for a while. Dealers at the other casinos point to a change of management as the issue. I don't know what it is, but it's a damn shame. The tables are old and creaky, the chairs are crammed in way too close, and the clientele is much older and creakier than even the tables of chairs! The few saving graces are the sheer number of tables (over 80 at last count) and the sheer number of possible games they run. When I showed up on Friday, Darko, Paulie and I all played in a 3/6 2 way rotation game of Omaha/8 and Stud/8. Good luck finding that anywhere else in Atlantic City! Everything else about the Taj pretty much sucks now. The dealers are surly, the wait staff overworked and the floor people mostly clueless. Oh, did I mention at that same rotation game, a brand new dealer, on her very first night, was placed at our table? She was overwhelmed. It was like throwing chum to hungry pirahnahs. I rate The Taj Mahal 5/10 overall. They lose points on their incompetent management, their prickish dealers and the general dirtiness of the room.
The Hilton
Bally's
Borgata
Caesars
Harrah's
Resorts
Showboat
Tropicana
The Taj Mahal
The Wild, Wild West (adjacent to Bally's used for tourneys only)
I was able to visit 7 of these and get my obligatory dollar chips from each one. In addition, I played at least one button round at each casino, booking an 'offical' visit. I even got photo of all of the poker rooms, except for Harrah's where the security guard told me he would have to "break my camera and confiscate the film" if he caught me taking a photo. Um, number one it's digital so there's no film, you gangster. Number two, if you take the 'film', isn't breaking the camera going a little overboard, you nazi ape? Just saying…
So, the 7 casinos I visited during the trip were The Hilton, Borgata, Harrah's, Resorts, Showboat, Tropicana and The Taj. Incidentally, I will, at some point soon, be putting up a website with a custom google map and links to all my reviews of the different poker rooms I'm visiting. Watch for the link in an upcoming post sometime in the next few weeks. In the meantime, here's the poor man's version of the poker room reviews.
The Borgata is the nicest hotel, and the poker room is on par with any of the big ones in Vegas, but it's SO big that it loses points with me. The room is slightly cramped (though the very tall ceilings give it an airy feeling) but the tables are top notch, the dealers are excellent and the chairs are by far the best in the city. But, on Labor Day Weekend of all times, the waitresses were insanely overworked. There were only 2 girls working about 30 tables in my section of the room and getting a drink was a major hassle. But the action at the Borgata is hot. It attracts all the tourist players, so the play is very weak and loose. There are also a good variety of games going, but it's mostly geared toward high limit players. There were no low-limit Omaha games going, but there was a 30-60 Omaha game and there was a waiting list for the active 200/400 Stud table! Also, I *hate* the brush desk at the Borgata. You come to the front of the room and wait in line to give your initials to the woman to be put on a list. There are so many games going that the screen showing the games sometimes has to cycle for 3 minutes before the screen with the games you're interested in pops up. Then, they call your initials out on the floor, but it's so loud on the floor, you sometimes can't hear it. Then you have to flag down somebody who works there and lock the seat up for you, but sometimes they only give you 25 seconds or so to find them, then they go to the next person on the list and you're outta luck! Once you've sat down though, the experience is pretty enjoyable. All the tables have in-table shufflers, which speed the game up a bit, and the chairs are a wonderful change from the other rooms. In addition, the waitresses are "Vegas-Quality" in terms of looks and can make for some nice eye candy. Also, since the room attracts young and hip tourists, the players themselves can be very attractive. The only other detraction I would note are the chips. I HATE them. The chips are plastic coated, not the traditional clay chips, with a weighted insert to give them some heft, but they are a bit on the light side. The worst part of the design is that the middle circle of the chip is ever so slightly recessed, and the resulting gap forms an airtight seal when the chips are stacked. This has the effect of the chips sticking together. Most people think, as I once did, that there is a magnetized chip of some sort which makes the chips stick. But I broke open one of the chips this weekend and it just ain't so. But shuffling the chips is a pain as a result and if you can't chip shuffle, what are you going to do when you don't have a hand, godammit?!? I rate the Borgata an 8/10 overall. They lost points on their chips, the brush desk and the noise level in the room.
The Hilton is a perfectly fine room, except that most night I go there, there isn't a decent game to be found. Usually, in my experience, there are only 2 or 3 tables going and the action on them is anemic. I do like the tournaments though, because they're relatively cheap and they don't have antes, which makes for a longer tourney and give players much more play. The tables have recently been upgraded, but the players are generally older and crabbier and the dealers tend to suck. The room does have 3 outstanding features though. The first is the huge bay window which looks West out over the city. It's not a beautiful view or anything but it's a welcome sight to see the sky at all in a poker room, which are usually dungeon-like affairs. The second great feature is a noodle bar, adjacent to the room, which serves up pretty decent noodle bowls, though you have to get them yourself. The third great feature, for me anyway, is the Asian gaming pit which is about 10 steps away from the poker room. Since the main gaming floor is downstairs from the poker area, having the Pai-Gow tables (my favorite non-poker gaming activity) nearby is a big boon to me. When I'm not feeling it at poker, and I want to de-stress from a bad beat, Pai-Gow can't be beat. I rate The Hilton a 5/10 overall. They lost points on their lack of ability to pull players into the room as well as their generally crappy dealers and non-existent floor staff.
Harrah's is in the marina area, and is the next casino over from Borgata, although you can't really walk there. The hotel is equivalent to the others on the boardwalk but the poker room is pretty unique. Instead of being one large room, the room curves and undulates so it feels more like a whole bunch of small and intimate pockets where poker happens to be played. The tables are perfectly nice although the chairs are on the cheap end. I never had a problem with the dealers there, and they are generally talkative and friendly. The play is pretty weak overall although I hear whispers that it gets sharky at times, though I've never seen that. The room is very pretty, with lots of pretty tiling to be distracted by as well as TV's, framed photos, etc… But the room is fairly small overall. Unlike other rooms, where being small feels like they stuck a poker room in as an afterthought, the room has the feel of being homey instead. I like the concept. I rate Harrah's 6/10. They lose points on not haivng enough types of games and on being at the ass-end of AC. Also, the security guard is a nazi pig who threatened to break my camera if I took a picture.
Resorts is the cruddiest and crappiest poker room in the entire city. I almost can't count the number of things wrong with it. It's tiny (maybe 8 tables) and it's adjacent to a smoking area in the casino and no there's no partition. About 10 minutes into my session, my eyes started to water up and I could only stand another 30 minutes or so before I picked up and left. The tables are just average and the chairs about the same. The dealers suck and couldn't care less, in addition to not knowing what they're doing. A guy exposed his winning cards on a hand but didn't show all the table before he mucked. The dealer took the cards and I asked to see them while they were in his hands. The dealer mucked the cards, started shuffling again and said to me, "He had a King". That's it?!? I continued my inquest. "What else, what suit?" Nothing from the dealer. He didn't say anything else and just kept dealing. It sucked donkey dick. I rate the Resorts room 3/10. They lost points on the size of the room, the location next to a smoking area, the crappy equipment, the piss-poor dealers and the lack of anything but 2/4 limit and 1-2 NL. They only got a 3, rather than a 2, because they're *right* on the boardwalk, which is within sight of the poker room, and you can even catch a view of the boardwalk if you're angled just right. Plus, the only Pai-Gow table in the entire casino is 15 feet away from the poker room.
Showboat is quickly becoming my favorite room in the city. It's relatively small, maybe 24 tables, half of which are usually used in tourneys, but the tourneys are top-notch and the staff is super friendly and competent. The tables are wonderful, with in-table shufflers, and the chairs are almost as nice as the Borgata. The room is across from the House of Blues concert venue, so on rare ocassions, you can actually hear some good tunes coming through the wall, like the night I was there and Twisted Sister was playing. :-) The tournaments are the big draw at the Showboat. $125 on Saturday night gets you 10,000 in chips (or was it 15,000) and 25-30 minute blind levels. The Wall Street crew usually has at least one member cashing in these tourneys and the structure allows for a lot of play. Cash isn't quite as good, with 2/4, 3/6 and 1-2 NL being the only games offered, BUT, it's adjancent and adjoining the Taj, which has every low limit game under the sun. The only other detraction I can think of for Showboat is the low ceiling which give the room more claustraphobia than is strictly necessary. I rate the Showboat 7/10. They lost points for the small room, the low ceiling and the dearth of games.
The Tropicana (or 'The Trop') is my favorite card room, but only for sentimental reasons. This was the first place I ever played in AC and was my 'home casino' for many years. There are some very good points to the room though. Their brush desk is the best in AC. Instead of using the newfangled Queue computerized system, they use the old school dry erase board with overhead cameras trained on it. The camera feeds are then fed to monitors in the room so you can see where you are. Floor staff promptly seats players whose names get called and it's actually audible! The dealers are competent and friendly (I even got asked out by one once! A woman no less!!!) and the room has a huge number of tables. The equipment is only so-so, with the tables showing their age and the chairs in bad need of an upgrade, but the sheer size of the room compensates. In addition, they're good about getting lots of different games going and it's not too hard to get a table. Plus, the Trop offers, in my opinion, the best game in the whole city, which is the 'Pink Game'. The Pink Game is 7.50/15 Limit Hold'em and is so named because the only chips used to bet are $2.50 chips, which are Pink in color. Bets are called out not by their amount but by the number of chips bet (3, 6, 9, etc…). Action is loose and there is just the right mix of sharks and tourists to keep it fun. Also, though it rarely runs, the Trop is one of the few rooms in AC to run Omaha/8 AND low limit at that. So it has a leg up on some other rooms in that respect. I rate the Trop 7/10 overall. The lose points because the room is somewhat grimy and crowded and the waitresses are notably slow.
Which leaves The Taj Mahal. The Taj is an interesting case, because until Borgata came to town, they were the biggest and best poker room in Atlantic City, or even the East Coast. At one time, they were considered among the best in the world. It's no mistake that in the movie Rounders, when Mike and Worm go to AC for a night of poker, they end up at The Taj. It was the gold standard for many years, but times have changed for the worse. Gone are the days when high-rollers would play at The Taj ("where the sand turns to gold"). I remember seeing roped off areas featuring small tables of 300-600 limit when I went 10 years ago but I haven't seen a game over 20-40 there for a while. Dealers at the other casinos point to a change of management as the issue. I don't know what it is, but it's a damn shame. The tables are old and creaky, the chairs are crammed in way too close, and the clientele is much older and creakier than even the tables of chairs! The few saving graces are the sheer number of tables (over 80 at last count) and the sheer number of possible games they run. When I showed up on Friday, Darko, Paulie and I all played in a 3/6 2 way rotation game of Omaha/8 and Stud/8. Good luck finding that anywhere else in Atlantic City! Everything else about the Taj pretty much sucks now. The dealers are surly, the wait staff overworked and the floor people mostly clueless. Oh, did I mention at that same rotation game, a brand new dealer, on her very first night, was placed at our table? She was overwhelmed. It was like throwing chum to hungry pirahnahs. I rate The Taj Mahal 5/10 overall. They lose points on their incompetent management, their prickish dealers and the general dirtiness of the room.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
R.I.P. Good Look Club
Two days after re-opening (with a 6-12 O/8 game I was DYING to try), the police have revisted the Good Look Club. This time, they brought a padlock with them. It looks like they're serious this time. We loved you, Good Look. You were the best in the city.
Hat tip - Anonymous (who reported from the scene)
Hat tip - Anonymous (who reported from the scene)
Sick cash game - Walnuts is the monster
What a crazy sick cash game we had tonight. I'm too tired to go over all the details, but I'll give a few quick bullet points and then point you over to two blogs which have already posted about it.
Bullet point 1: Paulie is the new record holder for profit in a single night: $888. He couldn't lose tonight. He was already the big chip leader at the table, with about $475 in front of him, when he's sitting in the SB and *this* happens. It limps to him and he makes a yo-leven raise. Everybody calls (it was that kind of night). Flop comes A69 with two clubs. Paulie checks and it gets to Brian who makes a sizeable bet. Paulie reraises and Brian, who is the 2nd biggest stack at the table, moves all in for about $375 more! He bets about 3X the pot and Paulie INSTA-CALLS! Brian turns up 69 for bottom two pair and Walnuts has the top set of Aces. The turn and river are bricks and Paulie scoops what I believe is the single biggest pot we've ever seen around these parts. His run didn't end there either. He ended up holding onto all of that profit and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Bullet point 2: I didn't play Hold'em tonight. I didn't get a lot of sleep this weekend, or last night, so playing at a 1/2 NL table, with the action going on, wasn't what I had in mind. So I dealt instead. We did end up switching to 2/4 O/8 at 11PM and I sat in for $100. That was more my speed. I made donkey call after donkey call and managed to get down to about $35. On the LAST hand of the night, Carol goads me into straddling, which I do, and get some craptacular hand like 8642 rainbow! Ohmigod how awful. But when it gets capped all the way back to me I say "Fuck it, maybe I'll hit 35". So I call and the pot is built up nicely. The flop brings JdTd3c. Carol bets when it gets to her and it's only two bucks. I should be folding, of course, but I'm not folding because I'm an idiot and it's the last hand. So I make the idiot call, along with everyone else, and the turn brings the miracle 9h. Miracle for me, that is, because it gives me my only possible way of winning, but there are still two ways for me to lose this. but I figure, "what the hell, I'm either good here or I'm not". So I bet when it gets to me. I'm gratified that everyone calls and no one raises me. I pray on the river for a non-paired low diamond (I'm asking a lot I know) and someone rewards my donkalicious play but rivering a 2c. I now have the 3rd nut straight. So I bet, of course. :-) I get a few crying calls and I show down my awful ass-end straight. One by one, people strain to see if they have something better and they fold. I end up scooping a big pot and end up with all of my starting money, plus 2 dollars. W00t!
Bullet Point 3: Brian. Ouch.
Bullet Point 4: Jordan. Ouch.
Bullet Point 5: Darko, you missed some damn juicy action and a whole lot of fun.
Check out these posts from Dawn and LJ for more details on the night.
Also, Kearns thinks I remind him of Jamie Gold. Not sure if that's a compliment, but the guy *did* outplay the largest tournament field in the history of the world, so I have to be somewhat happy:
Bullet point 1: Paulie is the new record holder for profit in a single night: $888. He couldn't lose tonight. He was already the big chip leader at the table, with about $475 in front of him, when he's sitting in the SB and *this* happens. It limps to him and he makes a yo-leven raise. Everybody calls (it was that kind of night). Flop comes A69 with two clubs. Paulie checks and it gets to Brian who makes a sizeable bet. Paulie reraises and Brian, who is the 2nd biggest stack at the table, moves all in for about $375 more! He bets about 3X the pot and Paulie INSTA-CALLS! Brian turns up 69 for bottom two pair and Walnuts has the top set of Aces. The turn and river are bricks and Paulie scoops what I believe is the single biggest pot we've ever seen around these parts. His run didn't end there either. He ended up holding onto all of that profit and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Bullet point 2: I didn't play Hold'em tonight. I didn't get a lot of sleep this weekend, or last night, so playing at a 1/2 NL table, with the action going on, wasn't what I had in mind. So I dealt instead. We did end up switching to 2/4 O/8 at 11PM and I sat in for $100. That was more my speed. I made donkey call after donkey call and managed to get down to about $35. On the LAST hand of the night, Carol goads me into straddling, which I do, and get some craptacular hand like 8642 rainbow! Ohmigod how awful. But when it gets capped all the way back to me I say "Fuck it, maybe I'll hit 35". So I call and the pot is built up nicely. The flop brings JdTd3c. Carol bets when it gets to her and it's only two bucks. I should be folding, of course, but I'm not folding because I'm an idiot and it's the last hand. So I make the idiot call, along with everyone else, and the turn brings the miracle 9h. Miracle for me, that is, because it gives me my only possible way of winning, but there are still two ways for me to lose this. but I figure, "what the hell, I'm either good here or I'm not". So I bet when it gets to me. I'm gratified that everyone calls and no one raises me. I pray on the river for a non-paired low diamond (I'm asking a lot I know) and someone rewards my donkalicious play but rivering a 2c. I now have the 3rd nut straight. So I bet, of course. :-) I get a few crying calls and I show down my awful ass-end straight. One by one, people strain to see if they have something better and they fold. I end up scooping a big pot and end up with all of my starting money, plus 2 dollars. W00t!
Bullet Point 3: Brian. Ouch.
Bullet Point 4: Jordan. Ouch.
Bullet Point 5: Darko, you missed some damn juicy action and a whole lot of fun.
Check out these posts from Dawn and LJ for more details on the night.
Also, Kearns thinks I remind him of Jamie Gold. Not sure if that's a compliment, but the guy *did* outplay the largest tournament field in the history of the world, so I have to be somewhat happy:
That night, I met other poker players from New York. Ari, Charles, the
comedian, his wife, Jamie, who somehow reminded me of Jamie Gold, Karol, who used to live in Haiti where I was raised, Karol's brother and some of his friends. Nice environment, very nice people. They even had a Birthday cake break for Jamie Gold.
My employer busts my ass
Well, the good times are gone. Remember those disclaimers that ocassionally appear on my blog at the bottom? They appear when I post to this blog from work, which I did this morning. Uh, I got an email from the office which monitors these things and they told me I am violating company policy and to cut it the hell out. I weighed my options.
1. The ability to blog during business hours.
2. Having a job
So it looks like I won't be blogging from work anymore. That's why no follow-up to the Labor day weekend recap. More to come during the week, after hours.
1. The ability to blog during business hours.
2. Having a job
So it looks like I won't be blogging from work anymore. That's why no follow-up to the Labor day weekend recap. More to come during the week, after hours.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Labor Day Weekend recap #1
There is waaay too much to put in one post, so I'll be posting little vignettes all day as I remember them. You can sew them together and consider them one long post as you'd like.
So, the binding thread of this group of posts is that the Wall Street crew (plus LJ), went down to Atlantic City for the entire weekend. The trips with the crew are always fun and drama-filled and this weekend was hardly an exception…
Everyone decided to take off on Friday and/or work a half day, except for myself. I had to work what ended up being a full day even though the markets closed around 2PM. There was so much work to be done this week that I didn't feel I could leave it half-finished, so I slogged it out until 5:30PM. The rest of the crew, Paulie, Darko, Wendy and LJ, made their way down at around 1:30, hitting only light traffic. I hopped a bus from the Port Authority at 6:30 and was also met with little to no traffic. Abbie decided to stay the night in Manhattan and met us down there Saturday morning.
The sleeping arrangments reflected the order in which we confirmed the trip. Wendy, Abbie, LJ and I all confirmed early, so we had one room. When Paulie and Darko came on later, they got a separate room. The logical choice would have been for me, the boy, to head over to the "boy's" room and separate us all out by gender. This didn't fit in with my plans to have each of the women cycle at least one night through my bed, but I wasn't about to quibble. ;-) But Darko and Paulie put the kibosh on my moving as they had paid extra for each of them to have their own bed and they were comfortable with the extra expense. So it was the three girls and I in the one room for the whole trip. Before you get an image of dunken late night orgies (yeah, I'm *that* badass), we BARELY saw each other for the entire trip. LJ was focused on her tournies, so she was up early and in early. Abbie normally keeps the same early-to-bed, early-to-rise schedule as well. Wendy is of the "Up at 2PM, Out until whenever" schedule. I'm pretty flexible on these trips but Darko usually convinces me to stay out late. So it was interesting every night, when I stumbled into my room in pitch blackness (because the shades were drawn and not necessarilly because the sun wasn't up) and not knowing who was in which bed! During these trips, Wendy and I usually share the bed because we're compatible sleep partners (cut it out you juvenile!). This means we are comfortable with each other's quirky sleep habits. I wear Breath-Rite strips, to keep from snoring, and she's cool and apreciative of that. And I'm totally OK with her changing positions every 20 minutes and sometimes getting up to change the CD that she listens to while she's sleeping (Don't ask for details, I don't know any). Having been married, I got used to having another person in my bed very quickly and this arrangment usually works out well. In addition, having been married, I also got used to being able to share a bed with a woman and not touch her in any way. :-) This also works out well for both of us and Wendy's boyfriend doesn't have to kick my ass. One faux-pas though on my part. Evidently, I need to bring Tshirts to sleep in, because going bare-backed is frowned upon as a breach of etiquettte. I'm still perplexed as to why that would be, from a purely scientific 'social studies' standpoint, but I'm cool with whatever Wendy wants. My bad. And please, no 'huggle' jokes.
There was not one, but two, pieces of high drama in regards to the room arrangements. One, Wendy wanted to invite a guy she had met in AC to stay in our room. Well, either our room or the boy's room. But no one was comfortable with having a strange guy the rest of us hadn't met stay with us. So that one was off the table. Ok, it wasn't high drama, but it felt that way at the time. The second bit of drama was in who would take the bed in our room. We stayed at the Fairfield suites, in which there is a Queen bed and a Queen sleeper sofa in the 1BR suite we were in. The bed, I assume, is more comfortable. The night we went down and LJ went to the room early, I asked Wendy where she and I would sleep. "The bed" was the answer I heard. But LJ had told me separately that *she* was sleeping in the bed. Rather than get in the middle of a potential cat fight, I decided to just let the matter play out. But Wendy had been so intensely sure that we would be in the bed, that when I stumbled in at 6AM, I immediately made my way to the bedroom on the right. Feeling along the wall (it was completely dark in the room), I found the doorknob and turned it ever so quietly. Now I was faced with a dilemma. I could barely make out the bed, but I didn't know what side Wendy would be on and I didn't want to wake her up feeling around for where her legs were. I mean, if sleeping bare-backed is rude, then feeling someone up while they're sleeping is damn close to rape! So I gently, and stealthily, made my way to the curtains to see if I could part them slightly and let in juuuust enough moonlight to see where she was. The moon's rays spilled out of the crack I had made and fell onto the foot of the bed. My eyes got adjusted and I saw….two lumps on either side of the bed! Uh, there were TWO women in the bed sleeping. Now normally, I would be very happy to see this but this was one of the few times in my life I was not happy to see two women in my bed (I CAN'T believe I just typed that). I put the pieces together and made an educated guess that Wendy had given up the bed to LJ and Abbie and I was right. When I crept back into the living room where the sofa was, Wendy was dead asleep, and there was a space for me on the right side of the bed. I undressed quietly and slipped under the covers, dead asleep in about 10 seconds. Problem solved and drama avoided.
Ok, this post was more about the hotel room arrangements than anything else. Not exciting, I know, but there's more to come. Stick around...
Like, duh!
Scientists confirm that rock stars tend to die younger due to drugs and alcohol:
http://jech.bmj.com/preprint/bellis.pdf
Next on the crazy train called "How to waste money on the distressingly obvious": Why is there always significantly more sunlight in the morning than at night?
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