Hunny Bunny had some work at Casino Windsor this week, and as with so many of his out-of-town gigs, I tagged along. We had a nice room overlooking the river to Detroit, and the hotel was far nicer than I'd anticipated.
The plan was to get there Monday, I'd spend the day playing poker, and then we'd go for a nice dinner before heading back on Wednesday. I knew they had NLHE tournaments every weekday at 10am, so the first thing we did after we checked in was scope out the poker room and get some info on the tourney. Tuesdays and Thursdays is a $50+$5 buyin; the rest of the week is $100+$10; and they said that I'd pretty much need to be in the room and playing at 8 to make it on the list. That's 8. AM. In the morning. So I weighed my options - wake up early and go play poker, when I know that I am not a morning person OR have a leisurely morning with Hunny Bunny, who I haven't seen in 2 weeks. I love poker, but come on....that's a no-brainer.
So we hung out, and when he had to go for the load-in at noon, I went and signed up for the $1/2 NL $100 max.table. It's a nice set up with an automated board out front so you can see exactly where you are on the list. I didn't have to wait long, about 20 minutes, and then I took my seat at a table full of college kids from the US.
Sigh.
I cringe everytime I'm around big groups of young 20-somethings these days. Every time they make a statement with that all-knowing air I'm embarrassed and annoyed: embarrassed because I know I was just as irritatingly sure I knew everything when I was younger, and annoyed because, well, those who think they know everything are just plain annoying to those of us who do. Jules, you'll laugh at this one...I got into a discussion about beer with four of them. Yeah, beer. The one girl was telling me about different kinds of beer, which in her mind consisted only of Miller, Blue, Coors, etc. I tried, I really did, to be polite, but after a while I couldn't stand it...I hit a point where I just looked at them and said that I'd been drinking beer for longer than they've been alive, and unless they were able to intelligently discuss the merits of a Belgian on lees versus a coffee porter, then they should just be quiet. Yes, I admit, I pulled the teacher voice on them.
The high points of the afternoon were:
I played very tight, folding a lot of marginally good hands, won more hands than I lost, and had about 180 in front of me at one point. Then my back started to hurt again, so decided that a visit to the spa might be an excellent way to end my day. Donked off some chips, then looked down at the hand I'd already decided was my last hand - QQ, on the button. Decided, what the hell, and moved all in thinking I'd just steal the blinds. SB (the only other grown up over 40 at the table) called, then didn't BB go all in with his 300+ chips that he'd been so carefully and tightly accumulating over over the course of the whole day? Ack. Then it's back to SB (everyone else folded), and he calls, and easily has us both covered. I remember saying something like I have a veerrrrrry bad feeling about this.
Cards flip over, and I see that SB has 9 10 off suit and BB has JJ. The dread lifts a bit as I think hey, I could triple up here. Flop is 7, 3, A - woohoo, I'm still good!! Turn is 8 - oh crap. And the river is, you guessed it, a 6. BB pulls a Helmuth, knocks his chair back, muttering under his breath and cursing. I turn to SB smile, shake his hand and say Good Hand as I get up. He looked really distressed to have knocked me out (wtf? isn't that the point?) and offers to spot me to buy back in if I wish. I laugh as I thank him for his kind offer, but I doubt I could play sensibly after that hand!
The plan was to get there Monday, I'd spend the day playing poker, and then we'd go for a nice dinner before heading back on Wednesday. I knew they had NLHE tournaments every weekday at 10am, so the first thing we did after we checked in was scope out the poker room and get some info on the tourney. Tuesdays and Thursdays is a $50+$5 buyin; the rest of the week is $100+$10; and they said that I'd pretty much need to be in the room and playing at 8 to make it on the list. That's 8. AM. In the morning. So I weighed my options - wake up early and go play poker, when I know that I am not a morning person OR have a leisurely morning with Hunny Bunny, who I haven't seen in 2 weeks. I love poker, but come on....that's a no-brainer.
So we hung out, and when he had to go for the load-in at noon, I went and signed up for the $1/2 NL $100 max.table. It's a nice set up with an automated board out front so you can see exactly where you are on the list. I didn't have to wait long, about 20 minutes, and then I took my seat at a table full of college kids from the US.
Sigh.
I cringe everytime I'm around big groups of young 20-somethings these days. Every time they make a statement with that all-knowing air I'm embarrassed and annoyed: embarrassed because I know I was just as irritatingly sure I knew everything when I was younger, and annoyed because, well, those who think they know everything are just plain annoying to those of us who do. Jules, you'll laugh at this one...I got into a discussion about beer with four of them. Yeah, beer. The one girl was telling me about different kinds of beer, which in her mind consisted only of Miller, Blue, Coors, etc. I tried, I really did, to be polite, but after a while I couldn't stand it...I hit a point where I just looked at them and said that I'd been drinking beer for longer than they've been alive, and unless they were able to intelligently discuss the merits of a Belgian on lees versus a coffee porter, then they should just be quiet. Yes, I admit, I pulled the teacher voice on them.
The high points of the afternoon were:
- busting out two people with quad queens. Gotta love it when you flop 'em. Either they weren't very observant or I'm actually making some headway in controlling my shaking hands (yeah, right), but I managed to slow play those puppies right to the end successfully. The one poor lad with the full house got a bit tilty, and made snarky comments about my suckout. I was going to explain a suckout to him, but fuck it, money tables don't come with lessons and I'm on a break from teaching.
- blatantly bluffing with my pocket 7's to steal the pot from the guy who had JJ.
- flirting just as blatantly with the extremely yummy floor manager.
- watching the play of the table, and finally thinking to myself, holy crap, I do kinda sorta know what I'm doing here!
I played very tight, folding a lot of marginally good hands, won more hands than I lost, and had about 180 in front of me at one point. Then my back started to hurt again, so decided that a visit to the spa might be an excellent way to end my day. Donked off some chips, then looked down at the hand I'd already decided was my last hand - QQ, on the button. Decided, what the hell, and moved all in thinking I'd just steal the blinds. SB (the only other grown up over 40 at the table) called, then didn't BB go all in with his 300+ chips that he'd been so carefully and tightly accumulating over over the course of the whole day? Ack. Then it's back to SB (everyone else folded), and he calls, and easily has us both covered. I remember saying something like I have a veerrrrrry bad feeling about this.
Cards flip over, and I see that SB has 9 10 off suit and BB has JJ. The dread lifts a bit as I think hey, I could triple up here. Flop is 7, 3, A - woohoo, I'm still good!! Turn is 8 - oh crap. And the river is, you guessed it, a 6. BB pulls a Helmuth, knocks his chair back, muttering under his breath and cursing. I turn to SB smile, shake his hand and say Good Hand as I get up. He looked really distressed to have knocked me out (wtf? isn't that the point?) and offers to spot me to buy back in if I wish. I laugh as I thank him for his kind offer, but I doubt I could play sensibly after that hand!
He called with 9-10 offsuit? And hit? Woah. Next time you better get yourself a cup to prevent further box bootage.
Great Post..I can literally hear the Teacher Voice in my head. That those infants chose to lecture you on Beer?! Ha, talk about playing with fire.