It was almost a week (or two) ago now, but some strong memories remain from the big Mastodon Weekend in G-Vegas, SC. It all started with a Rev. AlCantHang uprooting himself from the cold of the Philly suburbs and touring the east coast as he moves to Key West. A plan quickly grew up around the tour stop in Greenville so that it included a procedure (which I will leave for others to describe, or not) and poker game. Once the date was set, the A-listers of the poker blogging world started making their plans to attend.
Mr. & Mrs. Falstaff and I staged a preliminary event in the Queen City when Al stopped in for the Wednesday night before. We took him around the uptown area for some dinner and drinks. The end of the night was a great deal of fun. Al had put everyone's drinks on his tab. Knowing Al as a great drinker and humanitarian, he would try to pay for said drinks at departure, so when he went to prepare himself for the road (aka drain the weasel), Falstaff and I quickly had the bartenderess apply our $40 cash to the tab. When Al returned and asked to settle up, he was presented with a bill for 6 beers, 5 shots and a glass or wine and a total of $16.50. Un-rattled, Al just shook his head an muttered that he has been drinking in the wrong places. We did nothing to correct him, but enjoyed it thoroughly.
Hot Brain the Red and I headed to G-Vegas after work on Friday. We arrived as the early arrivals wandered in fresh from step 2 of the Procedure. Falstaff stated, "I smell of cigarette smoke and strippers - Rock On!" Many of the other poker players were enjoying the affects of an afternoon of drinking. I was thinking that this could work to my advantage. It did not.
Among the celebrities attending were Iggy the blogfather, Mr. Jones (former professional poker room manager), Badblood (our host), Otis (professional poker scribe), Big Pirate, G-Rob, Doc Chako from Seattle (yep, he really came all that way just for the event), TripJax, Bro O. Tripjax (BOT), Falstaff, Shep, Team Scott Smith, Rocket, and more that escape my memory at the moment.
We started around 7:30 pm dull (as apposed to sharp). The first two hours saw little movement in my stack. I was down to about 80 when I caught KK in a NLH hand. I got all my money in and got 2 callers. Triple-up! The timer then went off and it was my turn to change tables. That stack went mostly down over the next 2+ hours when I finally went busto around midnight. It was tough to spend that time watching none of my hands catch while BOT seemed to catch every freaking card he needed. It had me wondering when I would ever have such a night. It had never happened in five years of poker play so this was just more of the same.
Along with my rebuy, I also picked up some a beer and SoCo 100 to sooth my mangled sprit. I got to feeling pretty smooth pretty quickly. The night seemed to change as I retook my seat at the table. Iggy thanked Frank the Tank for dealing for the entire table. The rest of the table quickly followed suit. I drew upon my frustration to unleash a expletive laced tirade about the dealing. My only intent was the humor of the situation and my wink allowed everyone to enjoy my misforture, me included. It helped, and how. I started catching cards immediately.
Shortly thereafter, I took down a monster pot in PLO8 when I hit my nut-nut card on the river. In all honesty, I didn't realize that I had NN (the best hand for both the high and low). I thought I only had the nut low. That quaded my new stack up to around 400. Doc C contributed more than a few chips to both my plays with monsters and my plays with air. We lost a few more players and combined tables for the final table of the night (morning).
Then came the big hand of the night for me. In a hand of PLO, I picked up AAJX. It has been too long since that night, so most of the details are lost to time. There was some minor raising preflop and 4 players went to the flop. The board was very uncoordinated. I check and Otis to my left bets 40. I think we get one caller before I call. The turn was a pretty but perplexing A. Set o' Aces is a pretty strong hand in hold'em, but not as much in PLO. I check again and Otis fires out a bet of 100. The other player folds and I go into the tank. Otis has had my number for many sessions previous to this. The board did not have a low yet. A straight was possible, but not likely. There was also no flush, so I'm probably ahead, but there was no guarantee. I called. The river paired the ten on the board to give me As over 10s for the boat. I think I bet another 100 and Otis goes all in by betting POT. I snap called and turned over my boat. He looks disgusted and mucks his cards. I drag a monster pot of almost 1k.
Later, Brain told me that he wanted to smack me for showing my hand so quickly. He would have been right to have done so since Otis should have shown first and we all would have liked to see what caused him to bet so hard. In any case, my play was probably not correct. I really don't know what I'm doing in any of the Omaha games, but this was my most profitable hand of poker ever.
I won a few more pots and lost less before the night came to an end around 4 am. I counted out my chips and even I was astonished to add up 1548 in chips or a profit of 1348. That beats my previous best poker day by 3 or 4 times. My night had finally come and it felt better than I imagined.
Brian, Falstaff and I retired to a nearby hotel for the rest of the morning. Falstaff was staying on for the rest of the weeked, so Brian and I left him there and headed back to the Queen City. It was a great trip and a good weekend. My repeated thanks go out to Badblood and his family for putting up with us for the night. I'll have to invest more time in the good times next time.
1 comment:
This was great to read thanks
Post a Comment