Part 3 of trip report:
FOUR WINDS TRIP REPORT DAY 2
It's Geriatric Day at Four Winds. Bring a bottle of Metamucil, get a $5 comp off the buffet. Why was it Geriatric Day? Because, among other reasons, for the first time I was not coming to Four Winds alone; I brought my stepmom's mom, who insists on calling me her grandson even though she's not. (Shut up, I'm not a nit, it's just a sticking point for me. My mom's husband is not my dad, my dad's wife is not my mom, and my dad's mother-in-law is not my grandmother.)
You'd really have to know my step-grandmother to get the full impact of what this means to my trip, but here's what really counts about it: she is a slot player, and a serious one at that. Four Winds has 19 e-poker tables but about seven trillion slot machines. She wanted to tag along one of the days of my trip, and since the rest of you jerks have evidently decided not to show up and holla at your boy or shoot me a "sup bro?" or nothing, I might as well bring her.
Not only is Linda a slot player, she takes the [censored] seriously. She's got a whole system, you see, a sixth sense about which machines are "hot" and which are "cold." Explaining to her that machines with identical payout programs cannot possibly be different from one another, and that periods of "hot" and "cold" are simply mathematical variance is like trying to teach a dog to sing opera. You might as well just piss in the (four) wind(s). And when she told me her favorite poker game was Stud Hi/Lo, I bought her Ray Zee's
High-Low Split Poker For Advanced Players, and she scoffed at it. I don't think she's touched it since the day I bought it for her. After all, mathematical facts are mere primitive cave drawings when compared to the mighty power of her intuition.
That said, there's been a disturbing pattern that's beginning to emerge when she's come with me to the different casinos in our area: she wins money and I lose. When we went to Resorts, I went BUSTO at their 5/10 table (this was before I discovered 2+2) and she made out like a bandit. When we went to Trump, she went broke and bummed $20 in cash off me while I finished my last orbit at 3/6. I finished stuck about $100, but she'd turned my $20 into about $250 in those 15 minutes or so. LOL slotaments.
Despite her little idiosyncracies, I really don't mind her hanging out with me. I'm 27 years old and I ran out of grandparents four years ago, so it is nice to have a grandmotherly figure around, especially one who likes to go to casinos and who at least understands what I'm talking about when I regale her with stories of bad beats or gouda-movin'. I wish she'd get off my ass about not having a girlfriend, though. Also, she has a handicapped parking hangtag, so when she comes with I get to park 10 feet from the casino door. Ship it.
The first thing we have to do when we arrive is enroll her in the W[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] so she can start racking up comp points and become eligible for the three rolling jackpots for club members. With enrollment, Four Winds gives you a $10 credit for slot play, so while I was there I went ahead and got that installed on my W[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] card, the same one I use to log on to the poker table. Hey, I may not like slots, but only fools turn down free mobnies. We get to the floor and she sits at the first frickin' machine she comes to. According to her well-honed rules, machines that sit right next to the entryway pay out more often; casinos rig them that way so entering customers will see them pay off and get eager to sit down at other machines that don't pay as well. Again, you can go right on ahead and tell her that those machines pay out more often because they're sat at more often because they're easy to get to, but she will cackle at your delusions and crazy beliefs in things like, you know, logic.
I leave Linda to her slot luckboxery and, despite the fact that she got a map the second she walked in the door, I tell her how to get to the poker room if she needs me. Since the floor is pretty crowded, I point to the ceiling, where there's a blue ring of light that represents . . . oh [censored], I don't know, something symbolic that nobody really gives a damn about but provides the veneer of aesthetics and artistry preventing people from seeing the truth, that it's a house full of seven trillion evil machines that screw old people out of their Social Security checks and pension funds. Anyway, at the four compass points of this big blue ring, there's four other light displays, presumably representing "Four Winds." I point to the ring and tell her to follow it all the way around to the "north" circle, underneath which is the poker room. Pretty simple, right? If not, here's an MS Paint. Linda's slot machine is represented by the red X:
I pop my collar and roll on under the north circle. All right, bitches, Irish Mike has just entered the room; remember, you plebes are forbidden from making eye contact with his greatness. Egotistical? No. I'm beginning to think someone from Four Winds is reading this thread. I bitched about the lack of a state-of-the-art waitlist in Part 1; wham, waitlist shows up in Part 2. I still nitpicked a little about putting the waitlist screen in a bad location, and wham: they put a smaller screen on the registration desk. I scan in to put myself on 3/6, 'cause that's still how I roll, and it's three deep. While I wait I decide to burn off this slot bonus. I find a "Deal Or No Deal" carousel right outside the poker room and sit down. Shut up, it was either those or the Village People-themed machines. I put $10 in to activate my $10 bonus, push a bunch of buttons, having really no idea what I'm doing, and eventually the very small touch screen says I've used up all the bonus. Ship it. The machine spits out a voucher ticket worth $20. Sweet, I don't know what I did, but I broke even on my $10 and tapped $10 worth of house money. Hey, those rolling jackpot screens are everywhere, even above the Pai Gow tables. Now that I'm a full member of the W[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], can I win those even if I sit down at a table game? No, gotta be a slot player. Grrrrrr.
[censored] slots.
When the waitlist for 3/6 gets to six players, another table is opened. By the time it's full, it's become Geezerville. It was like a commercial for the Clapper rolled up and tried to step to me, Four Winds' Ironman Badass Of Teh Three/Six Limit Mafia, Stayin Fly-y-y-yy-y-y-y-y-yyy Til I Di-i-i-ii-i-i-i-i-iiie. I'm in Seat 8. Seat 1 is John, who strongly disliked this whole computer thing and seemed to be in a hurry to donk off all his chips so he could go to some other card room, evidently unaware that you could just exit out; you don't have to stay at the table until BUSTO. I kept on calling him "Tom" because he was a dead [censored] ringer for "Captain" Tom Franklin: same beard, same hat, same
penis on some whore's back, everything. This caused tremendous confusion because there was a "Thomas" in Seat 6, who was the least worst player of the bunch. Donald was in Seat 2. "Donald" was my grandfather's name, and he did what my gran'pa used to do, cut a switch and beat the [censored] out of people, including me when my AK was no good against his K3 that flopped two pair. But the awesomest guy there was Chester, in seat 4. A poker host was assisting him with how to operate the touch screen and when action was to him and he looked at his cards, I'm guessing, the host noted his age and said, "Now, you can fold . . . or you can call . . ." not even considering that someone who lived through both Roosevelt Administrations would come in raising on his first hand. Nope. "I wanna raise!" he said, and thumbed the Raise button like he was trying to squish a bug. It gets three-bet, he caps. AKx flop, Chester's jamming it like a slice of toast. The turn comes and Jessica, in Seat 9 to my left, bets and Chester finally calls. Tom raises behind him, Jessica three-bets and Chester awesomely call/caps. Tom figures out his hand is no good and ducks out. The river brings a fourth spade, and Jessica is quite noticably pissed. She bets out the last few dollars in her stack, Chester calls and shows 7x 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] for the runner-runner one-card flush to wipe out Jessica's KK. Hell yeah, go Chester! Jessica shoots daggers out of her eyes and goes to the cage to reload her card.
In Jessica's place sits some middle-age dude, making him a spring chicken at this table. I assist him with how to place his bets, but after the guy in Seat 10 leaves he moves there so he can see the center console better. Jessica rearrives, and even though Seat 9 is open, she takes Seat 3, to Chester's right, presumably so she could wait until he wasn't looking, break her rum-and-Coke glass on the side of the table and shove the jagged edges in his eye. With both Seat 7 and Seat 9 open, I start wondering if I applied enough Degree Antiperspirant and TAG Lucky Day body spray. I didn't have to worry much longer, because another Donald sat down in Seat 7. He looked like 2003 WSOP ME finalist Tomer Benvenisti, only thinner and dorkier. To differentiate them, I will heretofore refer to Donald #2 as "Donkald," to easily reflect his playing skills. I also have to help him figure out how to play, and this is how he repaid me: his first hand, he limps, I raise AQ, flop QTx, he donks, I raise, he calls. Turn blank, check bet call; river 10, he donks, I lolcall, your T4s is good, nice hand Donnie.
Jessica picks up on the fact that, as the Four Winds veteran at the table with three days of logged play, I've become associate table host, helping the fish get acclimated to these waters so I can scale and gut them. She says, "You know, you should work here!" and a floor hostess who was dropping by agrees. I respond that if I work here, I can't play here, and she says "Well, you can still play the slots." Grrrrrr. Just for that, I'm not toking the house on the next pot I win. But I think I'm picking up on a trend here: with no dealer there's a certain air of democracy and cooperation at these tables, like we're all in this together, just tryin' to get by in this crazy mixed-up world where you can play casino Texas Hold'em without a dealer, cards, or chips. And even though I look like a complete toolbag with my sunglasses and ten whites for shuffling, I'm being helpful and my usual chatterbox self, and I think it helped me get paid off a little more. It certainly helped in a sick three-hand rush I hit.
First hand, I have 22 in the big blind and flop my first set of the trip. I miss out on a couple river bets, though, because the 2K8 flop turned into a 2K888 board and I didn't have the balls to value-bet four opponents when any other piece of the board had me whaled. Next hand is A3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] in the SB, where I complete and then lead into the family pot on a flopped four-flush; Tom raises, and was thoughtful enough to stick around when I turned the nuts, check/raised him, then bet the river. Then I get QQ on the button, Chester limps, Tom raises, Donkald cold-calls, I make it three and Tom caps, and similar ridiculous postflop action, but somehow my QQ survived UI. Ship it thrice like cheese and mice.
Starting with $100, I hit the mid-$250s at my high-water mark before Jessica coolers me with her AA vs. my KK. After that, I start taking stock of the table. Chester BUSTO'd, reloaded, then BUSTO'd again Donald is bolting for the O8B 4/8 Kill game, and Donkald's beginner's luck has worn off and he's down to the e-felt. Looks like I've squeezed just about all the juice out of this lemon. Wonder where my next challenge will be? Right on cue, 'cause I'm a mother-[censored] P.I.M.P., a host comes around and asks if anyone at the table wants to get into the last two spots in a $50 cash SNG. Yesterday I had been on the waitlist for the $50 Tier One WPT minisatellite SNG, but stopped when I did the math: $450 buy-in to the big satellite as the prize, $50 buy-in times 10 players minus the juice = winner-take-all. No thanks, I'd rather crush the donks in my 3/6 'hood, yo.
But later I had a long conversation with the Poker Room Manager about his new place, and, according to him, the decision to go digital was made out of a casino-wide commitment to provide the best value for the players. As if he were trying to sell me a car, he added, "That's why I'll never charge more than 10% rake in a tourney." And he's right: the $100 cash SNG is $90 + $10, where the $100 tourneys at Majestic Star are usually $85 + $15. He was a good salesman, and I gave serious thought to buying in for that if I had a little more of OPM to play with. And here a hostess came around giving me that chance for half the price. Donkald jumped up and said "I'm in, I just have to reload," making nine players. Well, if there was any doubt left about whether I should take the plunge, it's gone now: Count Donkula over there sucks so much I'd take his action if he wanted to play HU4SOULZ. Without trying to sound like I was too enthusiastic about sitting down with Donkald again, I signed up.
Bad move.
While the manager's policy on tourney rake is certainly commendable, in return for the reduced juice, we got a blind structure that was retardedly awful. Starting stacks were 1,500 and the blinds started at 50/100 — FIFTY and ONE [CENSORED] HUNDRED — and went up every fifteen minutes. If a starting M of 10 doesn't suck enough, in half an hour it's 2.5 if you break even until then. Maybe the $100 cash SNG is better because you're paying more, but I'm certainly not going to find that out the hard way.
I played all of four hands. First hand, 65s in the small blind, and even though the implieds probably didn't justify it, I completed into a four-way pot, bet 300 into a Q65 two-tone flop and took it down. Next hand was after I'd paid two orbits of 100/200 blinds, when I shoved A9o over a few limpers and successfully squeezed them out. Next hand was at 200/400, when the guy on my right shoved for 600 UTG, I overpushed with AQ[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], and his T8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] flopped seventy-three outs twice with x[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7x and rivered an 8. Then three hands later I had 65s in the SB and openshoved into the chipleader in the big blind (who got the chip lead when he bluffed with KQ UI and Donkald called off three-quarters of his stack with Q4s for a naked wheelshot — damn you, Donkald, you were supposed to chipdump to
me, you douche), who called with whatever and flopped his whatever and Jesus [censored] Christ I'm such a [censored] moron for not following
my own [censored] rules.
I went outside to calm my nerves, and discovered that happily, the commitment to patron value extended to the bar, too. Basically, unless you order the tippity-top shelf superballa [censored] like Grey Goose, any drink is a buck-fiddy. Barkeep, Absolut and Diet plzkthx. A quick aside, while I was drinking I still had all the chips from craps yesterday since the cashier line was seven miles long, and since they'd gone to all the trouble to tell me about Pai-Gow Poker, I thought I'd play it. If you've never, it's a pretty cool game. You play against the house, getting seven cards. The object is to make a five-card "High" hand and a two-card "Low" hand that both beat the dealer. The coolness comes in the fact that if you only win one of the two, it's a push; the dealer only wins ties if hands are exactly tied, i.e. you both have AQ up front. House edge is a shade over 5% because of the tie factor and all wins pay out 100-95. That's a 5% vig, but since you can cobble together at least a push most of the time, you usually won't go broke in a hurry. I knew all that going in, but what I didn't know was that "Pai Gow" is evidently Chinese for "You're [censored]." If you think it's not real poker, think again: my first hand I got 9875432 for the nut low. Awesome. Later, I had a straight and AK and lost to a flush and a pair. Then I had J-high and 9-high and somehow pulled out a win. Sometimes good hands get beat and crap wins. That sounds like real poker to me.
I come back in and find that Donkald has reloaded for more 3/6. Hotness. I'm in, and this time you owe me one. But there was a problem: the ten $1 chips I was keeping for shuffling had somehow become nine. This is not good. Did I leave it at the bar? At the Pai-Gow table? I've already pissed $50 away due to stupidity, I can't have something [censored] up my qi right now. Sure enough, I dropped a couple hands early to fall to the $80 range, when right about then Linda walks in, needing to follow security because despite my instructions and a map, she made two complete orbits of the big blue ring without seeing the poker room. LOL can'tfindherasswithbothhandsaflashlightandabloodho undaments. She asked how I was doing, and then announced she was up over $200. [censored]. She can't win! If she wins, I lose! [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored]! I'm screwed now. Damn, and I was up like $110 before I paid for that stupidass tournament, minus $50 minus the $20 more I'm stuck at this table means I just gotta stop the bleeding before I lose $40 more. No problem.
K9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] OTB, somehow everyone else finds a fold and I openraise on Donkald's BB. He calls, naturally. Flop A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] Brick:house:, check bet call. Turn blank and he donks? Probably not an Ace. King-rag two pair leaves me with outs, so I call. River 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], he bets. Not like him to bet into the obvious draw getting there. I call, having no idea what he has, and of course the one time he decides to do anything but check/call with a draw, he has QT[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], missed his royal but hit the nuts anyway SOAGDB HY(ACHx5)
Right about then, the guy in the tournament who doubled through me with T8s came up to me and said "Is this yours?", holding out a solitary $1 chip. Duhhhh, like there's anyone else in here who's dorky enough to need real chips at a digital table. Gimme that. You're going down, Donkald.
*cue "Eye Of The Tiger" . . .*
QJ OTB, openraise his BB again, he calls. Flop Q98, check bet call. Turn 9, check bet call. River 9, check bet call YOUR 8 IS NO GOOD SHIP IT.
KQ in EP, raise, he coldcalls, we're HU to the flop: AK5. Bet, call. Turn like a 7, bet call. River like a 9, bet, he folds 42s face-up SHIP IT.
He is just hoping I could give him some insight into the evolution of the market economy in the early colonies. His contention is that prior to the Revolutionary
War the economic modalities especially of the southern colonies could most aptly be characterized as agrarian precapitalist. I say of course that's his contention. He's a first year grad student. He just finished some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison probably, and so naturally that's what he believes until next month when he gets to James Lemon and gets convinced that Virginia and Pennsylvania were strongly entrepreneurial and capitalist back in 1740. That'll last until sometime in his second year, then he'll be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood about the Pre-Revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization SHIP IT HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?
I was crawling closer and closer to the $100 breakeven mark when suddenly William, an older bald guy with glasses three seats to my right, decided he'd had enough of me running over the table, which had suddenly nitted up except for Donkald, and I was cutting in on all of their action with him. They were getting outdrawn by him, and he was paying it all right to me as cab fare to Valuetown. To keep Donkald from noticing the rising stress level of the table, and to keep the other guys in a good mood, I came up with a really clever backhanded insult by calling Donkald "the MacGyver of Texas Hold'em," because he could make something out of anything. "Yeah, Donny over there, he can make a four-high straight. Give him a ballpoint pen, a sock, a 9-iron, a bowling pin and a roll of duct tape and he can make a flush out of it." Donkald was proud of his new custom title, and the rest of the guys knew what I was really thinking.
Anyway, I open QJo, way too early to do so, Donkald finds a preflop fold and William three-bets me from the big blind. Flop TT9, he bets, I freecard, he calls. Turn 8, he donks, I raise, he three-bets, I tank. I've hid my straight pretty well. For all he knows, I have an overpair, maybe JJ with the OESD. But he's tight. Would he really be doing this even with AA? Or trips? It's not like him to overplay a hand. 99? 88? [censored]. I call. River K and now pocket Kings got there. Bet, call ZOMG HE TRIED TO RESTEAL FROM ME WITH 98o HAHAHAHA I HAVE $116 NOW THANKS FOR PUMPING A WORTHLESS TURN CARD SHIIIIIIIIIIIP IT.
Donkald goes BUSTO in the next couple of hands, and I lie and say the buffet is calling me, when in reality I'd be playing a 10/20 table for 3/6 stakes, and I'm not interested. I walk outside and bump into Linda, who was able to find the poker room without a GPS navigational system this time, and confesses that she lost it all and she's hurting all over and she's hungry and she wants to go home. I'd like to LOL, but I've been there. To add insult to injury, we have to make reservations at the buffet WTF? and when I tell her I broke even to clear my slot bonus, she started ranting and raving because she never got no goddamn bonus. So in the intervening time, I have to find her a wheelchair and take her W[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] card and figure out why she couldn't get no goddamn bonus. The chair was easy; the goddamn bonus, not so much. The computer at the W[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] enrollment booth said she never got it, so they re-installed it. I brought it back, with the chair, and when she tried to use it the panel display rejected her PIN, and when you put a "wrong" PIN in three times, it locks it out entirely. So I had to go get that fixed, and they said they wouldn't do it unless she authorized it. So I had to go get her, wheel her back there and get the card fixed, then take her back to the floor so she could clear her goddamn bonus. But she was out of cash, so she used my $20 voucher. Where I put $10 in, broke even, and got $20 back, she put $20 in and when she cleared it the voucher came out for $20.30, meaning she lost $9.70 of the $10 goddamn bonus play.
LOL.
Sorry, Grandma.
Jesus Christ, it's almost 9 AM. [censored] it, sleep is overrated. To the Four Winds!