RETURN TO FOUR WINDS: MARCHRON'S TRIP REPORTS, VOLUME TWO (bitches)
PROLOGUE: The Plan
So BobbyShaftoe drops me a line in the NC Thread about how he can make it to Four Winds on Labor Day weekend. I was planning on going somewhere to play on Labor Day, perhaps Four Winds, but I also wanted to check out Resorts since I hadn't been there in a while and maybe it improved with new competition nearby. Meanwhile, CrMenace has had a standing offer to meet me at Four Winds, since job requirements means he spends a lot of time about a half-hour north of there. Hmmm, I smell a 2+2 Takeover! Unfortunately, CrMenace can only make it Monday night, Shaftoe can only make it Saturday or Sunday, and I really only wanted to go Monday but I can swing Sunday, too. Grrrrr. Oh well, I guess I'll go two days instead of one, meet both of them, and tell each of them about the other or something.
PART ONE: Shaftoe Sunday
Since Saturday is bad for me, I arrange to meet Bobby on Sunday. He wanted, in his words, a "late-night session," so I don't bother getting up at the buttcrack of dawn because I plan on being there a while. I roll in at about 5:30 or so and discover that the other sports team I have much love for, the FIRST-PLACE CHICAGO CUBS, had rallied back to being down 5-4. When they fell behind 5-1 in the fifth, I kinda gave up on them a little, preferring to listen to some good hard rock 'n roll to psych myself up for the e-poker ("Ace Of Spades" by Motörhead is a really good selection here). Okay, I'd like to watch the end of this game; if by chance Bobby shows up I've warned him about this possibility ahead of time. Unfortunately, while my backup plan was, as before, to watch the game while playing Pai Gow, all the Pai Gow tables were either a) packed to the gills, b) had $25 minimum bets or higher, c) were in front of TVs showing worthless NFL preseason games instead of the FIRST-PLACE CHICAGO CUBS, or d) some or all of the above.
I wander around, looking for tables that fit my cheapo bankroll requirements and also have a view of the game. Lo and behold, I find the one $10 blackjack table in the entire casino on probably the second-busiest day they've had (only August 2, Opening Day, was busier), with one available seat at "second base." It doesn't have a direct view of the game, but if I set my chair at an angle I can see the giant projection TV at the C-Level Lounge, and just as I notice that, at that very moment, the Houston pitcher decided to adjust himself while the camera was focused on his mid-torso. LOL twentyfootnutscratchaments. FIRST-PLACE CHICAGO CUBS first baseman Derrek Lee comes up to bat with one man on base in the bottom of the eighth. I'm basically not caring about blackjack; I think I hit a 19 once, but it doesn't matter because D-Lee hits a drive to deep left field. I shout "GET OUT!" loud enough so the entire casino hears me, and it was evidently heard in Chicago, too, since the ball lands about four rows deep in the bleachers and the FIRST-PLACE CHICAGO CUBS take a 6-5 lead, which they hold through the ninth as I was standing on a 7 and not splitting Aces and doubling down on 16. When the FIRST-PLACE CHICAGO CUBS win, I bolt, somehow finishing up $10. Thanks dealer, give me ten whites for this, I got poker to play.
I scan in for 3/6 and notice that there's some beginnings of interest in a 5/10 table. Since I never got the chance to do that 15-BB challenge last time I was there, I decide to give it another shot this time, putting myself on that list, too. I make it five deep. I put $90 on my card and sit down at a 3/6 table in Seat 10. As I approach, I think that there's a young Asian man in Seat 9, but it turns out to be an older Asian lady named Lin. She was wearing a Cubs hat. I like her already. Whenever she's in a hand, and this was fairly often, she looks like she's doing aerobics in her seat. I don't know if this is a reliable tell or not. She'd limp in with T6o and the like, basically anything that could make a straight and/or flush. If she raised, book her for AA. She had 'em four times, winning twice; hey, .500 is a pretty respectable batting average for AA in live 3/6. (A little while later we did get an Asian guy in Seat 4 whose name was K and then thirteen letters that were either H, O, U, A, N, or E. The instant he sat down, I told him I'd respect him and his heritage by not even attempting to pronounce it. He understood. I called him K-Dog.)
Seat 1 was RONALD, an older fellow who was skeptical about the e-poker. When he found out I'd been here before, he asked me questions, and my well-rehearsed spiel of "faster play, smaller rake, no dealer tokes" was as just as sharp as it had been a month before. He still wasn't impressed. A little later on, his buddy comes up, who'd been playing 1/2 NL, and RONALD asks his buddy how he liked the e-tables. "Oh man, it's great," his buddy said, "the game moves so much faster, and the rake is only $3, and you don't have to toke the dealer! I love it!" RONALD looked at me and I shrugged and winked.
But the coolest guy was another old dude in Seat 5, with the name "HYDRO." I have no idea why he picked this name. Maybe he worked at a dam; maybe he thought "AQUAMAN" would look dorky. Either way, he was killing the game, with a stack in the high $200s as I arrived and rising pretty steadily.
Some nondescript hands go by; I win some, I lose others, but I'm up a little. After about an hour or so, I get JTs on the button after just one limper. My implieds suck, but since the game's not too aggressive I can very often see four or even five cards for 1 SB, so I limp. RONALD raises us all from the small blind (dammit), the big blind, the limper and I all call and the flop comes 889, giving me an OESD and a BDFD. It's checked to me and I make a freecard bet; RONALD calls and the other two drop (dammit). The turn's a 7 and RONALD check/raises me, leaving him with $7 after his $12 raise (dammit). I call and call the river, he shows the obvious 99 and I lose. Dammit.
I play a few more hands, and as my big blind approaches I'm becoming aware that I can hear music being pumped through the PA system. On Opening Weekend, that was one of the glitches Four Winds had yet to resolve; the volume was either set to "Nonexistent" or "Ear-Splittingly Loud," with no in-betweens, and it varied from one to the other seemingly at random, though how often Nickelback was playing when it was "Ear-Splittingly Loud" makes me think it wasn't just variance. But today it was just faint enough to be good white noise for me to focus on to drown out all the clatter from the seven trillion slot machines. I could make out the beat, but that was all. It comes my turn to post and I opt out for a bathroom/cigarette break, and as I stand, I don't know whether that extra two feet between me and the ceiling mattered, or whether the casino had just suddenly hushed up, but I finally heard some words: "Inside we both know what's been goin' on / We know the game and we're gonna play it / IIIIIIIII just wanna tell you how I'm feelin' . . ." DAMMIT. Four Winds just rickrolled me. Son of a bitch. I walk away from the table laughing, probably getting weird looks from everyone else.
I come back, make up most of my losses from that boat-over-straight hand I lost, then pick up AA. The hand before, HYDRO had them and won, so I'm a little worried since we've already established about a 50% winning percentage for AA due to Lin's results. When I had them, I had three opponents, and on every postflop street one of them donked into me, but somehow I managed to win UI and scooped a pretty sizable pot. I notice I'm up to $151 and opt out of posting my BB again. I've made it to 5/10, sweet. I go back and check the list and it's still five deep with me at the end of it. I ask a host how many people I'd need to open the 5/10 table and he laughs. "Man, that list is probably four hours old, most of those guys are probably gone by now." Pricks. If you're leaving, why not unregister yourself so I don't get my hopes up? It can't be that hard.
I notice it's about 9:00 or so, so I decide I should quit 3/6 and head to the buffet since I don't want to have to leave whenever Bobby shows up, and maybe when I'm done eating the 5/10 list will fill up again. I get to the buffet and they're slammed; I have to make reservations for 10:30. Grrrrr. When I get back, they've broken the other 3/6 table and combined it with the one I just left, and the waitlist is two deep to get back in. Grrrrr. I wait for an hour and fifteen minutes and move up only one spot. I suppose if I'd wanted to, I could have sat at any of the five or six tables running 1/2 NL; that's quickly becoming the game at Four Winds. I also could have sat at the O8B 4/8 Kill game that was also running, but I suck at lolmahahaha, and besides Four Winds always puts them alllll the way in a table in the far corner, as if to say hey you weirdos, we're sticking you out here so you don't freak out all the Hold'em players, capisce?
The buffet was excellent, as always, but I was bummed because they were out of sushi. On the other hand, I guess that removed the danger of me overdosing on wasabi again (in a PM to Bobby I said that if I'm in the buffet, look for the guy who's sucking on a fire extinguisher because I tried playing with that fire again). When I get back I discover that four more names appear below mine on the 5/10 list, so I ask a host if he'll attempt to find out if even one of the guys above me is still here, since that would bring us up to six players and they can open up. In the meantime, another 3/6 table opened, so I sit there and — surprise! — it all falls to hell. I should have known it would be a rough go when, of all people, Michael showed up. That'd be the iPod-wearing guy from
Part IV of my original TR who three-bet a flush draw and I suckered myself into folding QQ on a K-high flop. (After thinking more about that hand, I realized he was correctly pumping that draw for value, but after watching him play more, I discovered that was just accidentally optimal on his part; he loves donking it up with suited cards that flop flush draws.) It was like an Opening Weekend Reunion when Charlene sat down. I met her on
Day Two but she didn't make the TR cut because she donated to everybody but me. Then Jim showed up, of thanks-for-folding-your-live-one-outer-here-let-me-buy-you-this-beer fame from
the finale.
Amongst the people I don't know, to my right is a lady named Mildred who was way too classy for us, since she was drinking merlot. I mean, wine at a poker table? Go to the baccarat pit where you belong. To her right is a backwards-cap youngster named Joshua, who provided the humor for the night when he just called Charlene's river bet HU holding 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] on a 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 7x 10[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] board, not realizing he had a straight flush. The LOLness was that Charlene had the lone A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], and she would have paid off her entire stack $6 at a time. I made sure to mention this as often as possible, first because it's hilarious, but also because I was missing flops like the Notre Dame defense missed tackling Tashard Choice, so I needed something to entertain myself. The best hand I had was KTs on a KQT flop. The turn bricked but the river A wrecked my hand; I bet, Michael raised and I folded. Much as I didn't want to bet/fold anything against him given our history, he's never raising anything less than Aces up there. He had the Jack at least 95% of the time.
The clock is ticking past midnight and there's absolutely no sign of Bobby. I realized sometime during the night that I have no idea what he looks like other than he's, in his measurement, 5'20". So I was beginning to just walk up to random people who looked like they were in the 6'8" neighborhood and making small talk. Here's the thing: I'm not good at just making idle chit-chat with strangers, and poker players, as a rule, don't like being bugged. And there I was, bugging them. I couldn't just say "sup bro?" because that's really kinda personal, don't you think? So I had to find some point of conversation and try to work a 2+2ism in it somewhere. Here's the other thing: most guys who are 6'8" can probably kick my ass. I nearly caught an asswhoopin' from a big, kinda mean-lookin' dude who was short-stacked in the midnight MTT Four Winds was running. I basically ripped on his hat. It was brown with an orange Superman logo (as opposed to blue and red), but I had to bag on it so I could say "Meh, I don't know, I guess I'm kind of a
nit about that," making sure to emphasize "
nit." No response from him, unless you count his internal dilemma on whether or not to kill me right then and there or wait until going BUSTO first.
I decide I'm giving Bobby another half-hour. I get back to my table and notice I'm getting down to around $50. Four Winds flips my boomswitch, though, and suddenly when I'm playing two cards bigger than 10, I turn Broadway. Michael, Charlene, Jim and a few other nameless people eventually leave, K-Dog shows up and quickly leaves, and I bolt too, back to the other table, where RONALD and HYDRO are still there; RONALD was back near $100 and HYDRO was north of $400. I win a couple more pots to get me to $92. W00t, back in black again, I'm bolting. Wherever you are, Bobby, it's too late for me. I leave $2 ahead at about 1:30 AM.
Halfway home I realized I never took my name off the list for 5/10. Whoops.
(I later learned that Bobby brought a friend who lived too far away to make a trip to Four Winds feasible, so they went to . . . Resorts. [censored]. Why the hell didn't you tell me, Shaftoe? I would have gone there as a Plan B. We really need to start coordinating this [censored] better, bro.)
Tomorrow: I actually do meet CrMenace. Chedda shipped, LOLZ abound. Stay tuned.
<font color="white">Sorry about the rickroll, but since I got had I have to pass it on.</font>