Catching Up on the Week...
... A discourse of the lake, NBA all-star weekend, and some poker content... Well y'all, sorry it has taken me forever to post a new blog, but frankly I haven't felt up to it. I went bust this week. Flat broke and busted. I haven't really felt like writing at all, and spent most of Sunday and Monday playing Oblivion on the 360.OK... so one part of that is true. Just one. I'll let you guess which one :-).
This is going to be a long one, so I'll break it up into sections. First is a cross-post of my friend Rick Fuller's blog basically showing what a day on the lake is like. If you're in the mood for laughing and shaking your head, read, if not, scroll down to the next section, which will cover the week in poker and go over a couple of interesting hands.
Here we go!
As written by Rick Fuller:
Who knew playing with two balls could be so much fun...
I arrived at 7-11 just in time to meet up with Devo and crew who were stuffing hot dogs in their faces. Having just woken up and feeling more than a little bit of overhang from my exploits of the night before, I still felt somewhat compelled to accept the profferred Bud Light as we all hopped in the truck for the short drive over to Lake Mead. Joining us for the boating trip was Devo's brother Jared and his roommate Danny, with two other guys meeting us at the lake.
I have been to Lake Mead a few times before, once even renting a speed boat for the day and touring the thing. I have heard many people in Las Vegas complain about what a bad lake it is and how they hate it there, and I really have to say they are a bunch of idiots. The lake has its own kind of beauty that jumps out at you if you give it a chance and really look around. I had a lot of fun on the lake when I was there before and this was no exception.
Devo has an old, semi lake worthy pontoon boat that appears to have been used harder than Britney Spears on a Friday night. Half of the roof tore off in a windstorm a while back, his neighbor ran into the boat with his truck tipping it over and the insurance company "totalled" it. Devo and his friend cashed the check, stood the boat back upright, and headed back to the lake. The pontoons have so many repair marks from cans of liquid weld and duct tape that I was sure just looking at them too hard was going to cause them to open up and fill with water. I was even more concerned when Jaron asked Devo if he had remembered to drain the water out of them from the last lake trip. Trying hard not to think to much about drowning in a 1000 foot deep lake, I asked where the garbage was for my now empty beer can. Danny laughed and said, "Why do you think the floor of this thing is so big? Drop it."
We launched the boat and the six of us headed out for what the crew called "Bocci Island". The 35 horse power outboard whisked us along the 2 mile trip in 42 minutes flat and we beached the boat on the shore of a big island that bore many signs of past visits by this very crew. Devo broke out the Bocci Ball set, a game I have heard a lot about but never played. Basically, the rules are that one person first gives this little white ball a stripper's name and then throws it wherever they want to. They then make up whatever special rules they want to, such as, you have to stand on one foot, you have to throw backwards, you have to hit the rock behind Melody first, or you have to bounce the ball off Danny's head before it crosses the throwing line. You must always have a beer in your hand and if your beer happens to be empty then you must have a loaner beer in your hand. Then everybody takes turn chucking two balls at the stripper ball and the person who is the closest wins. The person who is the furthest away has to run back to the boat and get beer for everyone else. If your ball lands in the lake you have to dive into the 55 degree water and retrieve it.
Now I am not really sure how many of the rules are official Bocce Ball rules and how many are Devonshire specialties, but I do know that with the right combination of alcohol intake and the right guys playing the game, it turns out to be a pretty fun time, much more fun than it sounds. We played for several hours and I was lucky enough to never have to go get beers for the crew, although my ball did go in the water once. Luckily it was only knee deep so I was able to retrieve it without losing two other balls that have a real aversion to 55 degree water.
It took quite a while, but eventually throwing two balls at another ball got boring and, after sitting on the bluffs staring at the lake for a while, we headed back to the boat and cast off. We cruised over to another part of the lake and pulled in to this beautiful, hidden red rock cove and beached the boat again. We pulled out the fishing gear and fished off the rocks for a while with none of us catching a thing. Then, as darkness descended on the lake, we lit a bonfire on the sandy shore and drew up chairs, just relaxing, having drinks, and enjoying the gorgeous desert sunset. As both darkness and drunkeness fully decended on our gathering, somebody had the brilliant idea to play "hot coal". This game, much like the childs game "hot potatoe", but with more dire consequences, is another game that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense sober but seemed perfectly logical after beer number nine.
Anyway, obviously the game would start with a red hot glowing ember being pulled from the depths of the bonfire. Someone would pick it up and toss it around the ring to someone else who would juggle it and pass it on. If you dropped it or threw it bad you had to drink and if anybody was out of beer you had to go to the boat and get more. I eventually had the brilliant idea to play "hot stick" and then to see how long I could hold said hot stick while my skin started to smoke. I am a manly man. I can hold glowing stick in hand while skin blisters without flinching.
Anyway, the game slowly degenerated until Devo offered up another game involving some kind of ninja activity. By then one of the guys was off to the side throwing up, Danny had fallen over twice, nearly landing in the fire, and we decided it was time to head out. I decided that eventually we were probably going to end up back at the boat launch and someone would have to be sober enough to drive home so I stopped drinking. The six of us had been through nearly 78 beers by that point so it wasn't too hard to decide to stop.
We put out the fire and jumped back onto the lake cruiser, if by cruiser I mean 3 mile per hour putter, and decided to head down to the Hoover Dam to check it out. A couple of the guys had never seen it so we turned the boat down Black Canyon and arrived at the Dam. We parked the boat along the Dam canyon wall just up the Dam river from the Dam and started yelling at the Dam walls to see how many Dam echoes we could hear. I'm sure the Dam workers and the Dam drivers were more than a little annoyed by the Dam drunk guys yelling at the Dam canyon walls, but we were pretty much beyond Dam caring by then.
Eventually someone had the brilliant idea to head for home and we slowly crossed the lake and landed on the opposite shore. It was quite a sight to watch Devo try to trailer the boat while he was drunk and I was pretty glad I had stopped drinking since everybody else seemed to be in no state to do any driving. On try number 9, with a few more dents and holes in the pontoons, the boat was trailered and I got behind the wheel for the drive home. We made it back to Devo's house safely and his girlfriend Lara took us out for a late dinner. I spent that night in the spare room at his house. I needed my sleep for the next day we were going shooting.
Moving along. So that was last Monday. Good times. Tuesday Lara hooked us up with a room at the Wynn and dinner (comped... atta girl!) so I spend the day there. I played a short session that night, only played one big pot, and quit up around $500. I spent most of Valentines day kicking back, taking care of a bunch of errands, and spending the evening with Lara. Valentines day dinner? Fish Tacos, enchiladas, rice, beans, and Fat Tire beer purchased from the local Mexican joint. Soooo good. Thursday I lost $1100 in bad games, then went and sang Karaeoke with Jared and Danny, celebrating the fact that they both have jobs now. I busted out Gin-n-Juice. Old Skool baby...
Then, Friday came along. I have never seen this town so crowded. Ever. I ended up at the Venetian to play some 5-10NL Friday night and brought home $2400 after ten hours. There were several players that literally gave their money away. It was pretty sick. My favorite was when I raised it to $70 in the BB with QQ, got called by two players, got called by the ATM on the A K Q for $190 on the flop, check-check the 6 turn, and then he paid off my $400 A river bet with K T . Ahh, so sweet.
Saturday was more 5-10 NL at the Venetian. The game died around 7pm with me up $600. Here is the interesting hand from that session. Playing five handed, UTG makes it $30, cutoff and button call, and I call out of the BB with AQo. Flop Q 5 5 . I check, he bets $60, fold, fold, I make it $200. He goes into the tank, and then re-raises me $500 more! This was pretty weird. I wasn't really sure where I was at before this point, but his re-raise really felt like it was the last money he was putting in the pot. Kinda one of those "I like my hand, but I don't love my hand" kind of re-raises. I actually thought we may have the same hand. My range was half the time we had the same, 1/4 of the time he had me beat, 1/4 i had him beat, but I was pretty sure that he didn't want to put any more money in the pot.
"I'm all in." Total bet somewhere around $3200. He instantly folded. I gave myself a good pat on the back after that one.
When the game died I wandered over Caesar's to play some 5-10 there and won a couple hundred in a couple of hours. Very good soft game. Also while at Caesar's I found the NBA game. They were playing 100-200 NL and everybody was straddling. There were two pros in the game and seven ballas. I wanted in.
Lara, Miri, and I walked over to the Mirage to meet at Revolution, a new club/lounge there. VERY cool place! The party included Brandon Cantu, Jeff Madsen, Jim Shipley, Topher, Mohawk, Rick Fuller, and several others. We were able to raise $50k between six of us to stake Travis in the game. When he checked out the game: Private. What the?!? How'd the pro's get in?!? Oh well.
So, DAD showed up that night (Drunk Ass Devo) and got this urge to go play some dice around 2am. He quickly blew $300 and started heading back to REV. On the way he walked by the Baccarat lounge. Oops. Bet $300, lose. Bet $600, win. Ah ha! Now I have to book a profit. Bet 3, lose. Bet 5, lose. Bet 1k, lose. Bet 1700, lose, busted.
I was so pissed at myself. So freakin retarded. At that point I just wanted to leave, and Lara and I ended up crashing at Miri's house.
I did spend the next two days in hibernation playing Oblivion, and finally came out today. I played the 5-10 Wynn game. Early on I got really lucky in a $2500 pot with KK on a J42 two heart flop. It went check, check, I bet $100, guy with about $500 total makes it $200, and loud, cocky, annoying guy makes it $1k all-in. Now, this guy loves to make big bets, loves to isolate short stacks, and quite frankly I really thought my KK was good. I called, shorty folded, and I was way wrong and way behind his set of fours. But alas, a K spiked on the river and ship-it this way. It was the first time I honestly felt good sucking out on somebody. I generally never really dislike somebody, but this is one of those people. Either way, very lucky river.
PHEW. I need to stop falling behind on blogs. Stupid Oblivion. If any of y'all have played that game, I'm sure you understand.
The Wynn Classic starts Thursday, and the Venetian "Deep Stack Extragavanza" starts tomorrow, so y'all will get a good couple of weeks worth of tourney reports.
Thanks for reading!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
posted by Devo @ 4:20 AM
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