Monday March 21, 2005

9 hour tour for a fist full of dollars

I dropped by the WPC at the Reno Hilton Saturday evening on my way to the Bay Area. The game selection was better this time. Several good looking 20-40s, several ok looking 3-5 NLHEs, a 30-60 interest list, and some $210 SnGs. I played mostly NLHE that evening with the plan to leave the next afternoon. As I had left Tahoe it had started to snow and I was worried about getting over Donner. I'm generally lazy about some things and waiting in long traffic lines for others to put chains on and/or having to put them on myself is just plain miserable. So I got up sunday morning, did some work, and wondered down to the card room a bit before noon with the intention to leave fairly soon.

The NLHE I'd left the night before still going. As an indication of how good this game had gotten the participants told me about the huge pot that had been played right after I'd left. Some not really described prelop action had taken place although they all described the new player involved as a maniac (some of those giving the description were not exactly passive). The flop came down 552 (suites not stated). Willy bets out $200 with a straight draw, Vinny goes all-in for $1000 with 57o, and the maniac comes over the top for $4000 or $5000 with 22 (Vinny said 4k, but Willy was clear he lost 5k in this hand), and Willy called. I had left the game because I was tired, winning a fair bit (thus exposed), and several newcomers had looked fresh and were taking away my control of some situations. Even after hearing this tale of wild action I'm still very happy I went to bed.

I put my name on the board for a couple of games and had a quick bite at Asiana. Its always a nice meal and esp. good relative to other asian meals I've had in casinos.

After my meal I got in the the NLHE game and played for a while. I Managed to trap KQ with my AK in a King high board and have him backdoor a straight. About 1330 I was already thinking about getting on the road when Charles Williams, the room manager, decides he now had time to get a PLO game together. Before this I'd checked the road conditions and chain controls has disappeared (they had existed earlier in the morning) over Donner. This game is one I rarely get to play live but really enjoy so I chanced it and decided to play. It was a pretty fair game but soon after it started I checked the road conditions and unfortunately chain controls have reappeared. I pick up a few pots correcting for my earlier misfortune plus a bit.

By 1700 I was getting nervous about my drive to the Bay Area. 9 hours later when I finally climbed into bed I question the tradeoff I made for a few hours of PLO. After many years of traveling to and from Tahoe and 3 years of living there I had managed never to get myself into the position of having to wait that long. With that barrier reached I'd be more then happy never to spend such a long time on that trip again. ( Mar 21 2005, 09:26:05 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]