Part 2 of Trip Report:
FOUR WINDS TRIP REPORT DAY 1
When we last left marchron, he had a shimmying car on the way home from Four Winds, and though he departed $253 richer, this still worried him. So when he awoke Thursday morning, he put every last bit of mechanical know-how to work and discovered that his oil didn't need changing, and neither did his tires, and for some reason he's speaking in the third person . . .
Oh. Where were we?
Yeah, so anyway, I have no [censored] clue what's wrong with my car, and I don't care. With my history with this car, I'd be more worried if things started going RIGHT with it. But that doesn't mean I'll be taking dumb unecessary risks, so not only am I going to pass on screaming down highways hellbent on not missing a deadline I've already missed, I think I'll take the scenic route on some back country roads. Thanks to Google Maps' new drag-and-drop route-changer feature, I can plan it down to each and every country road, and it actually doesn't cost me that much time because the total distance is shorter even though I can't go as fast.
If you've ever used Google Maps or other, similar websites, you'll probably notice a disclaimer somewhere that says that traffic and construction may prevent you from following that exact route. And guess what? It's true. The FIRST off-the-beaten-path road I took: closed due to construction. Turn right for detour. So I make the detour, and suddenly I'm in the middle of some new ritzy subdivision. LOL? Eventually the county forgets to put up another sign, and I come to a T-intersection without knowing which way to turn. Luckily, the two cars in front of me both turn left, so I follow them, and LOL, the road's still closed there, too. So all three of us have to back up the train and turn around, where we go over dirt roads and people's driveways and God-knows-what-all before my internal compass tells me I'm now going east. I wish to go west. [censored] this, where's the highway?
Four Winds'
official directions advise that, no matter which direction you're coming from, you should take Interstate 94, get off on Exit 1 and come south to the first light. Since I did not follow these instructions, I was the first person to the light coming north, and there were seven million cars at the light from the other direction, with about fifteen million more still waiting to exit the highway behind them. Christ, this is going to suck. The stoplight's been turned off so Potowatomi Tribal Police and Berrien County Sheriffs can direct traffic, and there's 23 million and one cars trying to jam down onto one road. When we all make it to the entrance, they spread us into three lanes, but again we all have to jam down into one, a task further hindered by the fact that the police sent a tour bus into the thinnest of the three lanes and it scraped two emergency vehicles in its attempt to merge. LOL OWNED. (There will be MS Paint of this, I promise.)
Some comparisons:
Miles between South Bend and the entrance to Four Winds: just over 40
Miles between the entrance to Four Winds and the parking garage: just over 1
Time elapsed between South Bend and the entrance to Four Winds: about 50 minutes
Time elapsed between the entrance to Four Winds and the parking garage: I don't know, because after about 20 I decided to park in the RV lot. [censored] this, it's 95º outside and I have a hinky car that's had coolant problems in the past. Which reminds me:
Number of overheated cars on the side of the road between between the entrance to Four Winds and the parking garage: 2
One of them wasn't mine. Three cheers for the RV lot.
I accosted Four Winds in Part 1 for not having a state-of-the-art waiting list system, and I was wrong to do so; they just weren't using it last night because there was no need. Today, there was, as the place was pretty hoppin'. For those of you curious, these were the games being spread:
LHE: 3/6, 5/10, 10/20
NL: 1/2, 2/5, 5/10
Omaha: 4/8 Hi/Lo Kill, and I think someone was trying to start a PLO game.
And they had $50 "Tier One" sit-n-go's to a WPT satellite and $100 cash sit-n-go's ready as soon as 10 people signed up, plus the 4 HU tables. To put yourself on the list, you scan your W[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] card on a half-kiosk/half-podium looking doodad, select all the tables you wish to wait on, and it tells you how deep the list is. To check where you are, you look at the large flat-screen over the cashier cage. The poker room manager has a foldover laptop, and when you're up, they check their display to find your seat. A pretty efficient system, just missing one thing: a microphone. Seriously, nobody had any clue when they were up unless they were milling about the big screen, and since that's in a high-traffic area, nobody was milling about there. It can't be that much of an extra burden to put another screen outside the poker room, or use a microphone to broadcast just in the small portion of the back of the casino around the poker room. But heaven forbid we upset the Three-Card Poker players.
Now, the tables. In the center of each table there's what appears to be a
Microsoft Surface interface, though nobody in the room was geek enough to know for sure. This is the playing area, and it shows everyone's actions, bets in play, and bankrolls behind. It also keeps track of the pot and the rake, and more good news: THE RAKE IS THREE DOLLARS. In front of everyone's seat there's a smaller touch-screen setup. When your name is up on the list, it will reserve the seat for you, so you know where to sit. You scan your card, enter a PIN, select how much you're bringing to the table, and you're off. On your screen you see the nicknames of everyone else at the table, as well as their bankrolls, who's the button and who's still in the hand (though these are also on the main display), and who the action is on. At the back of your display is a little light that kicks in when it's on you. When it's your turn, you look at your cards by touching the area right above them; by cupping your hand into a C-shape you prevent others from seeing, and the corners of the digital cards peel up so you see what you have. On a couple of occasions, I had to blink for a second because it really did look pretty lifelike. No pictures obviously inside the casino, but there's still-pics and promotional video at their website:
playpokerpro.com.
How do I like it compared to standard B&M? It's . . . different, and that's really all I can say about it. Next time you play live, try to keep track of all the things that happen that waste time: the shuffled deck replacement, deal, the players who don't bet right, the dealer having to drag the bets into the pot, players (or dealers) who misread their hands. The machines eliminate all of that, though there's a slight learning curve for players who are unfamiliar with the technology, of course. It's not a perfect replacement, though; the tables aren't programmed for live straddles or blind-chopping, though there's no reason why upgrades couldn't put those in.
However, there's something to be said for the ambience. Don't laugh, but the one person who did more to get me hooked on the whole atmosphere of poker than anyone else was . . . future "The Price Is Right" host Drew Carey. Hey! I said no laughing. Seriously, his short story "The Royal" in his book
Dirty Jokes & Beer: Stories Of The Unrefined is really a magnificent description of a poker room (in the story, the Horseshoe in Vegas) and the thrills and excitement that go into playing just one pot. With all the aesthetics you lose out on through electronic poker, I can't see myself playing at Four Winds exclusively, though the lower rake and tournament juice will certainly bring me back (and the short distance doesn't hurt, either).
I put myself on the waitlist for 3/6 and got sat with two Mikes. When the table broke up, I did two things: go to the registration desk to change my screenname to "Irish Mike" (someone else named "Mike," though not at my table, followed suit and now he's billed as "Assassin Mike"), and, since I just couldn't stand it anymore, went on a quest to get some real chips. Since there were 23 million people there and ONE cashier cage area (duhhhhh), the line for that was seven miles long. So I found a nearby Pai Gow table, and requested to get change broke, and they told me they couldn't do that. WTF? I'm going to play, you goobers, I just want $10 in white chips when I'm done. I went to the end of the cashier cage line, dejected, where I met a helpful staff member. For the life of me, I cannot remember her name, which is a damn shame, because she was
gorgeous, and not just because she recommended doing a check-change at the craps table. Whoever you are, I'm sorry, I'm bad with names. Call me.
At craps, I decided to juice my karma by donating a yo for the house and putting $5 on the hard 4 (2+2, LDO). You jerks didn't come through for me, though, and I lost that bet but broke even on the rest. Thanks, Mason Malmuth; if you would have called your company Four Plus Four Publishing I would have made $135.
Back with shuffling chips, I got a seat at another 3/6 table. On my left was Hector — not the guy in Part 1 I called "Hector," but someone actually named "Hector." On my right was Hector's wife, Angela, and between them they contaminated my seat. It wasn't either of their faults; Angela was a self-confessed newb and Hector, poor Hector . . . he was a poor swimmer and could never survive the river. Seriously, that guy took some ridiculous river beats and dropped three $60 buy-ins in rapid succession, and I followed him to the rail. To Hector's left was a bad-beat artist who looked like William Hung, and was to poker what William Hung is to singing. To his left was Anthony, who cracked my QQ with 74s. To his left was Rafael, who was all-in twice, hitting runner-runner to win one of them, and then proceeded to run it up to $180 or so. Nice work. And to Rafael's left was Jeremy. Many of you may know that I am an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, so when someone shows up wearing a Michigan Wolverines jersey, even though
we're in the state of Michigan, I tend to not like them. Jeremy was awesome, playing off of me like we were Martin and Lewis. I mentioned drinking, he mentioned my "Irish Mike" screenname, I mentioned that I'm really Polish, and he whipped out his ID. Jeremy is very obviously of Latino descent, but his ID reads "Jeremy Liewjuerozakowski" or something just so awesomely Polish. He's adopted. And he was kicking ass, raising on absolute air and taking down pots left and right. I knew the beats were getting to me when he raised and I iso-3-bet with AJo, not even concerning myself with the two opponents caught in between us. Hector capped and I wound up in it deep. When the smoke cleared, I had $19 left at the table. Total loss -$81, total on the day -$69, total for the trip +$184.
I guess my theory was right: electronic poker does make you more loose.
A postscript: the buffet was expensive, but outstanding. However, if you're from the Midwest and are used to Japanese/Oriental restaurants that serve only bland, tamped-down wasabi with their sushi to suit the wimpy palates of white people, I'd recommend you tread lightly near the sushi portion of the Four Winds buffet. The wasabi greeted me with a firecracker to the sinuses and then ripped its way down the usual path, reaching its real target zone about halfway through dessert.
The sad thing is, it was so good I may have it tomorrow. Just with less wasabi.