Oki-Vegas Report

My trip out to OKC was over 10 days ago and I took no notes, so this trip report will be the memories that stick with me rather than the immediate report that jogs my memory when I look back.  Memory joggers are good, but the memories that I will carry forward from this trip are good as well.

There were no pictures taken on this trip.  That is very out of character for me, but I wanted this to be a minimalist trip.  No camera.  No computer.  Just relaxation.  Keep an eye on http://www.instanttragedy.com/ if you want pictures.

The flight out started with an early 4 am wake up, shower and drive to the airport.  My flight on Continental connected in Houston without incident.  I got to OKC a little early and Maudie was by in short order to pick me up for the drive to the lake.  It took us less than 20 minutes to get lunch at Arby's and to miss our turn.  We didn't realize our mistake (the turn, not Arby's) until we were about 20 miles off course.  A quick stop for beer and directions got us back on track.

We arrived at the lake with beer and ready to rock.  We were warmly greeted by OOSSUUU, Tragedy, Buddy Dank, Skidoo, Kat, Mr. and Mrs. Surflexus, Joannada, and our wonderful host GCox and his assistant "Triple B" (Bill the Beer Bitch).  I drank a couple of beers during the introductions and we headed for the lake.  Great fun was had riding the waves of beautiful lake Oki-Vegas (of was it Fort Cobb Lake).  Videos of this and many other events of the weekend can be viewed at the websites of Tragedy and Kat above.  Go see.  Skidoo managed to flip on his run which sank both the boat and his knee.

I probably drank four more beer just chatting and watching the goings-on.  I guess I was still decompressing from Iraq just a bit.  We headed back to the lake place shortly thereafter.  I had a few more beers there before I realized that I was not even buzzed.  It turns out that been in OK is the 3.2% variety.  What a waist of time.  That was not the point of the trip.  The point of this part of the trip was to enjoy a meat-fest of venison burgers and polish sausages followed by a hold'em cash game.  The cash game put one of the most evil beats on me when my AK flopped a broadway straight.  I got all my money in against Skidoo's pocket 7s (that is a 96% chance to win).  The next two cards are Q and then 7 to give Skidoo a boat.  That was the end of my poker for the night.  I was down $90 and dead tired.

We headed into OKC to following morning.  After more conversation, some guitar hero, more great food and some great karaoke entertainment, we sat down to the big tourney.  To this point, I've never even come close to cashing in a blogger event.  I have a good-to-great record in charlotte area tourneys, but I'm a big O-fer with the bloggers.  Well this day I busted out to take a 3rd place and cashed for a $74 profit.  I added a few more dollars to get my Oki-Vegas balance to a -$9.

Sunday was travel day for most of the rest of the group.  I bid them farewell and headed for the Riverwind Casino down near Norman, OK.  This was a wild session that saw by early flopped set of 9s get crushed by a flopped set of Qs (felt).  After a rebuy my set of Js got out drawn by a rivered flush.  I made some good hands and actually got up by $100 before the long slow slide took my stack down to $32.  I got my first AA of the trip to hold up in a 3-way pot to get close to $100.  Shortly thereafter I raked another big pot on a set of Qs.  I finished the session up $18.  That also gave me a big $9 profit for the weekend.

Some of the mental pictures that I'll carry with me from the weekend:

Kat's very swollen ankle

Mrs. GCox and BuddyD doing karaoke (they were good)

Saving the jet ski from major repairs (I just watched)

Just hangn' on the porch at the lake

Listening to Tragedy talk to his kids (it was both happy and sad but so real)

Finally making the money at a blogger event

Toasts to Iggy as he made his run at the WSOP

Dial-a-shots

 

So let me tally up the weekend:

Poker - Profit

Friends Made - Profit

Good times had - Profit

Get the Iraqi sand out of my system - Profit

That is one profitable weekend.  Thanks once more to Mr and Mrs GCox and the rest of the crew.  I'm already signed up for next year.