Campfire Stories

Reno... The Gettin There

Snow sucks I have had plenty of content to write about all week, but for whatever reason I have been pretty dang lazy and unmotivated to write. But after yesterday's adventure through the snow across Nevada, most of the time spent with a hippie named Kevin, I decided it was time to come out of hibernation once again.

So, Friday night after I couldn't get away from my 9 4 on the A A 2 , 5 , Q board (I check/raised/4-bet flop, shoved the river), I was feeling pretty ancy. I came home, wanted to write, couldn't ended up playing in a frequent player point satellite to a $200 main event satellite, and that sure was fun. It was a rebuy-and add-on structure, so since these infinity frequent player points are worthless to me, I jammed every hand trying to get a stack and putting chips onto the table. I kid you not I went twenty minutes straight shoving EVERY hand pre and lost every time. Then, I finally sucked out, and then I was able to take advantage of my image, getting it in waaaay good with the hands I got later and they held. I ended the rebuy period with the chip lead, regained it with 3 tables left, and carried that all the way into the money which was top seven. It really was quite fun at the end since I had all the chips and basically raised/4-bet every single hand. Ruined this poor guy's day... raise with the ol' 57o, get shipped on, call since I'm getting 5-2 for like 1/15th of my stack, he has 88, flop XX6, 3, 4 with 9 left. So, I win my seat and decide that I'm officially playing online Sunday, not the Wynn $10k. I had been wrestling with the issue for a while since it's obviously going to be a small/tough field. After talking with some dudes I was leaning toward online, and hey, the seat just kinda sealed the deal :-).

Also, I was planning on heading up to Reno on Wednesday, but yesterday (Saturday) I had nothing to do and didn't want to play online or live, so poof. It became travel day. I was going to go to Reno early. I called up, booked rooms on the poker rate for 10 days, and after shaking off the hangover that I blame entirely on AMAK316 from Saturday night, I started the drive north on 95 out of Vegas.

I had taken this road as far as Beatty before, but that was back in December of 02. I really enjoyed the drive. There is a lot of cool stuff out there in the desert. I'm gonna have to take my time coming back and check everything out. Anyways, about 10 miles outside of Beatty I picked up a hitchhiker named Kevin. I'll admit... he was pretty weird, but in the I'm scared or the I need to draw my weapon kind of scared. I asked if he had any music requests, picked Led Zepplin, and freestyle sang to all 10 songs I had on my iPod. But not in a creepy way, but definately weird. The dude had been on the road for 23 months, originaly from San Francisco. We really didn't chat much (as he wasn't very good at chatting...), and I dropped him off in front of the Atlantis or something like that around 11:30pm.

I then drove over to the Grand Sierra and went through one of the most frustrating check-in processes ever. I don't have a credit card. I just don't. Sorry. Never been a problem before.

"Sir, there is a $50 deposit that will be held against your card for incidentals if you wish to have those available."

"Yeah, yeah.. no problem."

She's already told me that she's charging my card now rather than at the end of the stay, which kinda pissed me off, but whatever - it doesn't really matter right?

She whacked my card for $1200. $650 for the room, $550 for 11 days of $50 in incidental deposits.

K this is just ridic.

"No, take it off, you told me $50, not PER DAY." She got really confused. Left the desk. Left me with a line for about 5 min. Comes back, says she's gonna call my credit card company, there is still nobody else at the desk, I say just give me my card I want to leave, she does, and now I need to find the Bell Desk. Why? Beats me. when I gave my bags to the bellhop, he gave me a ticket like normal, then said to take it to the Bell Desk inside. I'm like, why? No reason. Just do it.

*Sigh*

"Hi, they told me to come to you." I hand him the ticket.

"Yup, this is why. Are you going to your room right now?"

"No."

"Ok then, take this ticket, and when you get to your room give this number a call and we'll bring your bag up."

POGAIERMGOPAIRJFPOAIENPOFOAIDSNHFPOIJQOEWPIFHOIJGAIONDOIGVNAPOIEFAO.

I mean, seriously?

So, I get everything squared away, and I decide to go do some exploring. I discover the poker area, see my friends Crystal and Jeremy who live in Tahoe (not surprised to see them here), and end up taking an empty seat in a 15-30 LHE game. They looked at me and licked their chops, thinking "Yum Yum! NLHE Tourney donk trying to play a limit cash game!" No... and I can't really come up with what they were thinking to be honest. This was the best LHE cash game that I have sat in since... at least July 07 in Arizona, but prob way farther back than that.... Canterbury 05? Bellagio 04? Not sure really. Seriously - I played 45 mins, we ranged from 6-9 handed, and one other player raised pre-flop. He did it twice, and once was BvB. I prob did it like 10 times. Nobody else raised. Here's one sweet example. Limp, Limp, Limp, I raise ATo, SB calls, BB calls, all three limpers call. Flop 865, SB bets, lots of things happen, and SB rolls over KK at showdown, which miracleously ends up being good. If you know anything about limit hold'em you know how especially awful this is.

Another example of money hating that they did last night, this one directly benefitting me. UTG limps 6 handed, I raise UTG+1 w/A 8 , we see the flop heads up. It comes Q 8 4 . UTG checks, I bet, he literally hmmmm's and bob's his head, shrugs his shoulders, and thows three red $5 chips into the pot (hypothesis: since these chips were synthetic and since chips in general are hard to light on fire, he decides to throw them into a pot

Time out: My 55 just lost to A2, A3, and A9 aipf in the 100r. LOL. It's a rough Sunday already. Busto in Brawl, in for $700 in 100r, have min chips.

K game on.

So the dude decides to call with XX. Turn 3. Now he fires. I make the easiest raise ever since it's so obv what he has at this point, and he calls. River a 3, he fires again, I call obv, thinking I'm gonna be pissed if he has something worse than I put him on and just hit a 2 or 5 outer, and he says, "I missed."

Damn right. Ship the money. But he won't fold. He says, "What do you have?"

I say, "I called you sir."

"I missed. I have nothing." Drops his cards. I drop my cards, put a $1 chip on them, and hold on to them until the pot is pushed to me.

The dealer says, "Are you folding sir?"

"Well, no... not if he's going to be like that." He retrieves his cards and finally tables the five and the six of different suits. Exactly what i put him on. I have to respond to this though...

"Sir, don't get mad at me for not showing my cards when I don't have to. Don't insuniate that I am being impolite by not tabling my hand when I called you. You, sir, are the one trying to avoid showing your cards when it is your turn to, not me."

Anyways, I was amused to say the least. The hand was fun in all aspects.

I walked with $230 after about 40 minutes, came upstairs, passed out, woke up before my alarm this morning, and am gonna be playing online all day for next four of em...

Peace and good luck!

Devo

posted by Devo @ 1:11 PM |