Okie-Vegas: Wednesday
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Okie-Vegas: Wednesday
Yeesh...after getting home early Sunday I took the day off Monday and I'm still whooped. Regardless, let me see if I can at least start to put the pieces of Okie-Vegas together. It was quite a blur of alcamahol and cards.
Planes, Planes, And Automobeers
Wednesday started very early as my flight took off at 7:00am en route to Chicago. This was bitter sweet as I knew it was the first step to get me to Okie, but was also a punch to the gut in a way. You see, I'm a Chicago Cubs fan and I could never imagine heading to Chicago without making my first trip to Wrigley field. Yet, there I was traipsing through O'Hare airport at 8:10am with nothing better to do than find some airport breakfast and sit around until 11:55am.
Suprisingly, Chili's had a pretty damn good breakfast and the bar was already packed with 3 guys drinking bloody mary's. I couldn't bring myself to drink a liquor drink on a Wednesday morning in an airport - Okie-Vegas or not - but it was nice to know others were preparing there day with a mixed drink.
The second flight felt pretty quick and the next thing I knew I was in Will Rogers airport at about 2:00pm. As I rounded the corner to the welcome area, I immediately saw GCox since he towers over most folks. I made my way through the crowd and there he was standing with 3 cards in his hand. It took me a second to realize they were all Jacks. That was pretty friggin' cool G.
Me thinks it took about 4 minutes before I had my first beer in Okie. We had to wait for SteelerJosh to arrive around 3:30pm so we went to G's truck at the airport parking lot and started pounding some brews. We had a few laughs checking out the locals - one with the worst set of teeth I've ever seen in my life - then continued downing the Keystone Lights. About 4 beers later it was time to go pick up Josh. It wasn't very difficult for him to pick us out of the crowd as we were the only dumb asses strolling down the escalator with cards in our hands...7 2 offsuit of course.
Newcastle...Not The Beer
We decided to forego a trip to G's house so we could go ahead and hit a casino for some pokery goodness. First, however, we stopped off at the Half Time Bar & Grille for some grub and a bucket of beers. That laid the ground work for the day and night ahead. The bar was only a mile or so from the casino so it was no time before we were slinging chips live.
For those that don't know, this was only the second time I had ever played poker live and my first time was not much of an experience. I played about an hour at a casino boat in Indiana last year so I was still a little green when we hit the Newcastle Gaming Center (or something like that). Our gaming choice ending up being 3/6 limit and I must say I never felt out of my element.
Unfortunately, though I felt like I fit right in, the cards didn't exactly want to work for me. If my hole cards were great to start with, the flop would miss me completely and the betting would put me out. If my hole cards were not so great, but I was still able to see a flop, it would miss me completely. If I had suited black, the flop would come all red. It was just that type of night. Before I knew it I was down a buy-in and had not won ONE FREAKING HAND.
I think I managed to win two hands that hole night and walked out the one buy-in short. I wasn't disheartened as I knew the experience at the tables was worth much more than the money I lost. I also knew that Newcastle was no where near done with me, and I was no where near done with it. By the way, who names a casino Newcastle when they don't serve beer?!
Carrie-Okie
Knowing we had to meet up with the GCox fam as well as get back for the Mookie, we busted down the highway en route to the GCox house. That didn't take long and before we knew it we were touring G's pad. The highlights of his pad are the HUGE master bedroom as well as a cool Karaoke set up in the den. As for G's wife, Carrie, she is one cool chick, as hospitable as you can get, quite a karaoke singer, and a cutie to boot. G's a lucky man and the whole family are just super dupe.
After hanging with the family for a while it wasn't long before the Mookie was set to start. The beers were once again flowing so my game quickly went loosey goosey. I recall bluffing at a number of pots and obviously got lucky with no calls. After a while I chipped up to about 5k or more and woke up with aces. I don't recall the action before the flop, but on the flop I got it all in with a King on the board and jjok showed down KK to give him the set. That AA vs. KK hand sent me packing and pushed him to the chiplead, laying the ground work for an impressive final 3 finish. As always, I had a great time at "the best home game on the net."
After the Mookie we putzed around a bit, drank some Guinness (I love that stuff), then decided to play some .25/.50 dealers choice poker. G took a tough run early going down a buy-in ($20) while I ended up being the beneficiary of said buy-in. I don't recall much of the games, but they were pretty crazy shit like Acey Deucey where the pots got pretty damn big. In the end Josh pretty much broke even and I ended up whatever amount G was down. It was good to get a little of the money back from my lost buy-in, but it was even better to sneak it out of G's roll like that. HaHa.
As 3:00am came and went, it was time to hit the sack. I had been awake nearly 24 hours and my body was letting me know it. There were a few SoCo shots that first night, but I'd say we barely put a dent in the half gallon. I didn't worry as I knew that bottle was going to take a huge hit at the lake, and damn was I right. Thursday at the splendiferous lake was an adventure in booze and poker. I've got plenty more to write about, but at the least, look for the Okie-Vegas Thursday write up here soon...
posted by TripJax @ 3:01 AM,
0 Comments:
Post a Comment