I made Vegas without a hitch on Thursday.  I also hit Community One FCU and closed out my checking account and withdrew everything except the $25 it takes to keep the account open – I still have payments to make there.  As soon as I’m done with those payments, it’s ‘see-ya’ time for me.  I spoke with the cashier for a few minutes as she closed out things for me and handled my withdrawals.  She couldn’t believe it – appeared to be completely shocked that I was getting dissed as I was by the establishment because she looked over my accounts as we talked.  On leaving, I said, “Well…this is goodbye, it’s like closing a 16 year chapter of my life.”  She agreed…naw, we didn’t get sniffly…but she was very nice.  To the CU “SCREW YOU!”

Carole and Marie and I made lunch at Mimi’s and had a great time.  Laughter was a big part of the deal, Marie is so cutely funny at times it’s hard not to laugh.  Carole was in good spirits which is very nice considering what she’s been through, even before Gordon passed his health wasn’t the best and I believe it wore on her heavily.  Isn’t that the way it is?  You spend 20 some years with a person, they become your day and night, things going badly for them means it’s also going badly for you and there’s an effect that can’t be described and isn’t easily understood unless you’ve been there.

Then we were off to the Suncoast for some poker action.  Funny, but not, all three of us walked up to the podium to see a guy appearing to be late 20’s-early 30’s looking down at some paperwork and a woman doing something with the computer, seemingly having a dispute discussion.  He looked up and asked us what he could do for us.  We said we were looking to play poker.  He turned back around to talk to her.  Then his head went back to his paperwork.  Guess we were dust balls that had fallen out of the ventilation system. They continued talking to each other.  I walked down to the end of the corner, right in front of him, and finally smacked the counter with the flat of my hand and in a semi-joking manner told him we wanted a seat.  He picked up an empty rack and smacked it on the counter and did something that resembled “OK, what do you want to play?”

Kee-rist!  I didn’t see more than 3 games going so how do they just ignore a prospective player?  We were told to go to an empty table, he was starting a 2nd $4-8 game.  We did.  Three others joined us but within a few moments three seats opened in the main game and we were back to square one.  We were asked if we wanted to be on $2-4 lists.  We accepted and Marie got called for a seat right away.  A few minutes later Carole and I had seats in the other game.  Marie was coming to our table ASAP.

It was a lot of fun, kind of reminded me of days gone by when there was no pressure to win or be someplace, just to play and giggle – yes, that takes me right back to my original belief about poker, it’s the social experience that hooks people.  The adrenalin rushes are part of another piece of our twisted psyche.

Marie had the 1s, a good sized gent in the 2s was the brunt of my teasing and it all went off well.  The 3s was an older gent that got Aces beat and seemed silently salty until I said something to the 2s and the 3s opened like a like a flower finding the light of day.  He laughed and got involved too.  About the 15th time the 2s looked back at his cards on the turn, I asked him if his cards changed.  That started a whole river of fun.

I saw Tony, he used to play $15-30 Stud at Bellagio – now he plays?  One of the dealers used to be a grinder, $10-20 Holdem at the Stardust and played a lot at the Mirage.  David landed at our table but he didn’t seem to recognize me and I left it at that, he player $20-40 Stud consistently at the Mirage in the old days and played at Bellagio occasionally but had moved more into Holdem.  One woman, I can’t remember her name, used to play $15-30 Stud at the Mirage on an almost daily basis, I dealt to her in GulfPort at the Grand, and at Bellagio, now she plays?  A local player named Stan and his wife (I have pictures of them here on Tango from a play at the Palms about two or so years ago) were both there playing the $4-8.  Poker is such an amazingly small world in a way.  One thing Marie and I talked about after we left is the fact that these people HAVE to play.  Most of them played higher in the old days.  What does that tell you kids?  You figure it out.

I was surprised that they didn’t make a player move into the blind when someone was waiting to take a seat, they gave the option for the seated player to play the whole round and then move – forcing the waiting player to WAIT!  They also didn’t give the option of posting between the button and the blind.  They also allowed everyone to come in free and there appeared to be no penalty for moving out of the blind.

The three of us all left about the same time, I won $12 – Carole picked up around $50 – Marie lost $7 (she got ugly beat on her 2nd to the last hand when she had Q-Q and one of the guys beat her with 3-5 making two pair.  We made $, had a great time with lunch, hung out, laughed our butts off and what more could you want from the day?

As I was cashing out, a new suit had stepped in behind the counter to cash me out.  He said he knew me but I didn’t remember him, well…yeah…buddy, you’re looking at my player’s card with my name on it!!!  OK, maybe I’m being too hard there, maybe he did remember me but I was wearing one of my favorite Ruger ball caps, the LCP, and had my hair up in a ponytail.  So I asked him where I knew him from.  I dealt my first Grand Prix tournament at the Golden Nugget with him in 1987.  He was a regular dealer at the Nugget in those days.  Alex.  He said he was leaving poker and going to chef’s school.  I believe he did.  But not too surprising he was working at the Mirage about the time I quit to go to Bellagio.  We used to run into each other out at Calico Basin in the early a.m. as I’d pass him and his four dogs hiking the trails.  He said he still hikes, two of his dogs have gone on to the great hiking trails in dog heaven but he replaced them and still has four.  Twenty-three years…Kee-Rist!  How time does fly.

With the New Year’s Eve party pictures and life in general, I completely let our last PokerWorks’ Family tourney report slip off somewhere.

PokerStars Tournament #227995345, HORSE
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50 USD
8 players
Total Prize Pool: $40.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/01/03 22:30:00 ET
Tournament finished 2010/01/03 23:52:51 ET
1: djhomeschool (Denton), $20.00 (50%)
2: clearspine (Boulder), $12.00 (30%)
3: Ickyone (Pahrump), $8.00 (20%)
4: cmacc85 (waycross),
5: Alexe55 (Marina Del Rey),
6: PokerWorks (Pahrump),
7: PokerHack07 (Alturas),
8: madd 54 (Missoula),

My sis and her guy were home and they played the tournament.  Nice!  The usual banter and noise was going on with 8 players, PokerStars split us into two tables of four for the first 10 minutes or so.    It was a lot more fun when we got to THE FINAL TABLE!  Yeah, it’s easy to make the final table in this tourney.  *chuckling*

Andrew took 1st place, much to Clearspine’s dismay as he was hoping to keep his record intact.

But the good news is that we are playing again tomorrow – the 17th, same buy-in, same password ‘donkeys’ and hopefully the same group of players with a few new faces.  Come on people, join us.  PokerStars>tourney>private> ID 231190209.  The easiest way to find it is go to the private tourney tab and scroll down January 17th, 22:30 (that’s Eastern time).  C U there!

AND, while you’re at one of your favorite online poker sites, don’t forget to register for the aid to Haiti funds they are running!

Poker people are the best…thanks everyone.