Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A Big Mac with everything and a Diet Coke

One the more funnier things I heard on more then one occasion while on my vacation in Florida. I was standing in line at the local Mc Donalds and one of your typical overweight lazy Americans is in front of me and he orders a Big Mac, stresses with everything on it, and a "large" diet coke. I felt like asking him if he wanted to super size it while he was at it, since the fine lil moma sita behind the counter who didn't speak english too well didn't ask him. I really had to hold back from laughing so hard. I heard it once again at one of the theme parks but in a different way, same type of scenario though.

I don't know how often this happens but I'm going to start paying more attention when I'm in fast food joints from now on. What do these people think, that drinking the diet coke will somehow dissolve all the fat and cholesterol they just consumed. I mean you might as well order a large cup of fryer grease to go along with that Big Mac cause the diet coke isn't helping ya out any, shoot the grease would probably taste better. Of all the things on the menu to order a diet coke with you pick a Big Mac, with everything on it.

I don't understand it can someone please enlighten me, you just ordered an artery clogging Big Mac and diet coke. Its an oxymoron in a sense right? You might as well order the regular coke the caffeine and sugar can't hurt you any worse then the calories, grease, and cholesterol already are. Where the hell is Jacjr, do you do this shit too? Maybe you can explain this nonsense. In the mean time all I can do is shake my head and giggle a lil.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Day Trippin'

Headed over to the SHOP on Saturday evening for some 1/2 NL, get there and Pops says something to me about heading to AC on Sunday for the day, which sounded like a plan. Ended up leaving the 1/2 game about midnight'ish up a few stacks of red chips. Told Pops to hit me in AM if he wanted to roll up to AC.

Pops shoots me a text about 3am while I am surfing the intrawebs, I can't sleep due to being at the pink game until daylight broke and so did the game, so my body is on sleep during the day mode. Pops text said something about leaving at about 8:45am so I decided to try get some shuteye. That didn't work out to well I just couldn't get to sleep something about going to AC makes me not tired. I don't know if its the thrill of gambling, the degeneracy in me, or the cheap hookers that gets me excited about going there.

So I unsuccessfully tried to get some sleep, got up hopped in the shower and was on my way. Get to Pops house hop in his fancy new ride, a Pontiac G6 and we are on our way. Get to AC about 12:ooish and register for PT Seats 50K guarantee which was a 300+40 event.

I didn't to so well was out after about the 5th round. I was short stacked with about 7K in chips after getting donkey punched by the monster which was A4 off suit. I move all in for my last 7K after UTG makes a min raise to 1000, button thinks for a minute and calls and our original raiser JUST calls. Flop 10JJ they both check, turn A, original raiser checks, button moves all in, original raiser calls and tables KK the guy on the button obviously had AK and flips it up. I have QQ and am drawing dead on the turn and I'm out.

I go blow off some steam at the slots and pick up an extra $100 bones, I love those one armed bandits its prolly cause we have so much in common. haha! Then I go get on the list for some good ol' 1/2 NL at the Taj, after about 15 mins I get myself a seat and run 200 up to 300 before I immediately ship it on a OESD to the very loose, and I stress the word very, Asian guy who just sat down. I reload for $200 more and then this hand comes up with the farmer and the guy who obviously watches poker on TV for a living.

I raise from UTG+2 to $12 Farmer calls and the professional poker on TV watcher calls on the button (we'll call him PTV) as does one other, 4 to the flop plus bb and sb = $51 in the middle. Flop comes off 10cJc4h and it checks to me I lead out $45 Farmer says I'm gonna have to go all in here and throws in $57, PTV says raise and makes it $120 including my $45 and has just shy of $150 behind him. So its $75 back to me and I go all in having PTV covered. He goes in the tank and I ask him if he's on a flush draw and I get no response, he thinks a lil while longer and calls. Turn brings a yucky 4c and river is the 17 of purple horseshoes. I say to PTV you hit your flush just as the farmer tables KJ off suit and PTV shakes his head and tables his KK, I table my AA and scoop a healthy pot. I'm not gonna get into how badly PTV played KK from the button cause I'm not trying to get the floor wet.

Played a few hands after that, none that really stick out 'cept one that I played kinda bad. I flopped a straight with a redraw to the uber nutz, when the flop came out 6h9d10d and I check. Guy to my left bet $20 one caller I just call, I shoulda woulda coulda raised but opted to get cute. turn is the 7h, board is 6h9d10d7h, guy on left leads out fifty other guy folds and I raise $75 on top and he re-raises what I thought was an all in but he had a black chip and a couple red birdies behind his arm that I couldn't see. Turned out to be a $125 raise which I just called woops, either way I'm free rollin' now cause I'm fairly sure we are choppin' at this point. Turn is the Qc and I move all in, this guy actually has to think about it, he's got less then $150 left and has well over $275 invested in a $600 pot. Board reads 6h9d10d7hQc and he finally calls tables 10 8 off suit and table my 7d8d for the chop.....Boooo!

Looking back I think if I put in a hefty c-raise on the flop 1 of 2 things happen, either I win the pot right there or guy on my left calls and other guy puts more money in the pot chasing his flush draw or whatever it was he was doing. I didn't I got cute and settled for the chop as punishment could have been much worse so I'll take it.

A little while later Pops shoots me a text about grabbing some food says he will be over in a few, sounds good to me. He pulls himself from the BJ pit and comes and grabs me, I rack up while I'm ahead and head to the cashier.

After we grabbed a bite to eat Pops and I headed down to the BJ pit so he could "win" back his losses from the tourney. I watch for a while and this table is on fire so I couldn't resist myself, or Pops's encouragement, and I take a seat. Pops says I put on a clinic for the first half hour or so but we were both running real good against the dealer. I play for another hour or so get up a lil under a meat ball and cash out. Pops is the one that put on the clinic, some how or another he managed to run it up to over 4 meat balls 2 or 3 times, ship it almost all back 2 or 3 times and still managed to run it back up to 5 meat balls and cash out. What a luck box!

After a long day I'm beat and up a couple bucks and Pops is up a couple bucks so we call it a night and head home. Kudos to the folx at EZ-Pass they are some bright ones by the way, I had a problem with my ez-pass and couldn't get through to them on the phone and their website was having technical problems. Nice work you guys wait to till the busiest weekend of the year to figure out your website is a piece of garbage and leave me having a worthless piece of plastic that says ez-pass on it. Thanks for adding an extra 1.5 hrs to my trip I appreciate it.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Poker in Florida

Been down here in Pompano Beach / Ft. Lauderdale area for a few days now, getting ready to hop on a plane tomorrow to come home. Figured I'd post a quick update of how things went, I wish I could stay down here a few more days and play. Overall the card room I played at was very nice I would put it on par with the Borgata, not quite as nice but very very close. Its called The Isle, its a casino for the most part, horse track out back, slots downstairs, poker and simulcast up stairs. It gets pretty noisy up stairs cause of the simulcast being in the same area as the poker room. Really its just one big room with about 60 poker tables and a bar with a big wall with TV's separating the poker and the simulcast area.

Nice room aesthetically, but has got to be the worst run room I have ever played at. Just the way they do everything is so ass backwards from what we would be used to in AC. Of course there is a max buy of $100 so there is lots of rebuys. On the weekends it was horrible we were lucky to get in 10-15 hands per hour. The reason being they dont keep their racks set with more then $500 and they don't have drop boxes for the money. The dealer takes your money gives you chips and puts the money in the middle of the rack where the slots for the cards are. Then a chip runner comes over takes the cash, throws out some chips that have denominations on them for the cameras, the dealer counts the cash, the chip runner takes the cash and comes back with chips. Of course play stops while this takes place....la ti da la ti da twiddle my thumbs..... ok back to the game. When its busy there in a 2/5 or 5/10 game this happens about 3-4 times an hour. I wanted to stick forks in my eyes it was so annoying. And the floor people are so bad its not even funny, I wanted to apply for a job it was so bad. Oh and the floor people think they are so cool, Adam could definitely work there.

You are asking wow they have 2/5 and 5/10 NL with a $100 max buy, yes they do and its not to bad, well the 2/5 isn't that bad. I did play the 5/10 NL there, (thats where I wanted to stick forks in my eyes cause then game kept stopping to fill the rack 4 times an hour) I figured hey what the heck a new table was starting up so I took a seat. It played like a 2/5 game in AC once a few people accumulated some chips. I was in the 5/10 game for 3 buy ins and had 7 more buy ins in my pocket so I wasn't to worried about it.....LOL. I could only take it for about 3 hours and quit only down about 9 red birds. Thats the other thing that was odd, the highest denomination chip in this place was a green chip ($25). The 2/5 NL game was actually ok it played like a 1/2 NL game we would be used to up here or in AC. The 1/2NL game was decent also it actually played like a 1/2 game is supposed to play like I guess, you just have to dodge the BS which isn't to hard. The players in all the games are very readable to anyone that has been playing for awhile.

The $100 max buy really changes your game cause once you build a stack if you get felted you gotta start back at $100. So if you are stuck $300-$400 and you get back to even or up a lil you are almost better off getting up and starting over at a new table. If you can get in a game for a buy in or two and build a nice stack you can really play regular poker when you play the 1/2 or 2/5 games there. The 5/10 game is just dumb other then for the fact that there is a lot of deep pockets at the table, you really got get hit over the head with deck to make money in that game. But its still dumb there is just as much money in the 2/5 games and they play a lil bit better.

Overall I lost a couple hundo but thats because I kept playing tourney's and $150 SnG's. I played one $125 MTT tourney and had about 25K in chips (started with 4K) but the blinds jumped so ridiculously after the first break from 300-600 to 400-800 with a 100 ante then to 600-1200 with a 200 ante. So when I lost a coin flip with AQs vs. JJ for about 5K I went from chip leader to having an M of about 10 and the blinds went up every 15 mins. I really should of checked out the structure before I played, but ah well. I broke about even playing the cash games maybe up 10 reds or so. It took a lil getting used to so thats why I say I wish I had more time to play down here cause the games are definitely beatable.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Vacation Time!

I've been on vacation the past week, down here in sunny Florida visiting Mickey Mouse and his wonderful theme parks. I finally got a decent internet connection to update this thing, I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to post about earlier but the internet connection via the room I'm in sucks. So I'm borrowing the connection from across the street as long as it holds I should be good for a few minutes.

My Dad and Mom decided to take us all on a nice family vacation to Orlando for the week, my sister flew in from Alaska met us in MD and we all caught a flight last friday on Airtran via BWI to Orlando. Not a bad flight made it here in a lil under 2hrs, thank god cause from what I heard if I would of stayed in MD I would of needed to build an Ark. Weather has been great all week long not a bit of rain or a cloudy day the whole time we were here. Good for us not good for the residents of Florida, fires have been running amuck all up and down the coast all week long. They have things under control and actually caught a guy suspected of arson in one of the fires. One of the other fires was a controlled burn that got uhh out of control....whoops. They do controlled burns down here to keep fires from spreading into residential areas sometimes it doesn't work out like its supposed to, not good, but 90% of the times it works out for the best.

Anyway enough about the bad stuff on to the trip. So we stayed at a nice place called The Fountains down in Orlando, its pretty nice not what I'm used to though. I guess getting those nice suites up in AC and getting pretty much what ever you want delivered right to your room kinda spoiled me. But my Dad has this place through his timeshare, wouldn't really call it a timeshare though. Its kinda a step above that cause he can go wherever he wants and then some its pretty nice. But this place is really nice we each have a two bedroom condo, full kitchen, two nice bathrooms with showers, a living room and a nice size balcony with a great view of a lake(theres lots of lakes down here). Its a resort too so we have a few pools, a bar, a clubhouse, plenty of stuff to keep ya occupied if ya just want to chill and not do all the touristy stuff.

First couple days we just relaxed spent some time with the family, we haven't seen my sister in about a year so we hung out a lil let the kids catch up with her and stuff. Went out with some friends of mine that live down here, they took us to The Capital Grille in Orlando off of International Dr. Two places in that sentence you should visit if you ever make it down this way, The Capital Grille and International Dr. (I Drive for short) The dinner was great at the Capital Grille a lil pricey, not Bobby Flay pricey, but a lil more then The Olive Garden. The food was great and the service even better, we had a great server went by the name of Arnaud (pronounced Arno if that helps any) real nice guy in his mid-thirties I'd say, grew up in the south of France and has been here since the late nineties. We exchanged quite a few stories one of them I have to share with you all cause it was hilarious, but I'll get to that in a bit. We ate late and were the only ones out on the patio cause it was closed(amazing what a $20 pre tip will get you when you've already been seated inside)but as soon as Arnaud came to our table I sensed he was an easy going guy. We were one of his last tables so he would come hang out with us after he realized we were not his normal run of the mill patrons. Great guy and if you ever make it down to Orlando look up the Capital Grille make reservations and ask for Arnaud Soules.

Ok well I'm getting a lil sleepy and I have to get up early cause we are headed south to Pompanpo Beach to see Tracie's brother for a few days, finally I can get some poker in, woo hoo. But I'll leave ya with that funny story Arnaud told me about his college years and a motorcycle. I'll be back in a day or so to pick up where I left off and share some more stories with you like "The big mac everything on it and a diet coke" and "Getting the eel from Mickey Mouse"

On to Arnauds story, we all sitting around had a few Coronas and got to talking about my motorcycle accident and Arnaud tells me he used to ride and has a story about the first time he had a motorcycle and his first accident. Here it is:
So I was about 18 0r 19 in college and having the time of my life and I talked my parents into letting me get my first motorcycle, I was working and had my permits for motorcycles, in France you have to get different permits for each cc class of motor cycles 600cc, 750cc, 1000cc etc. So I got my 750 cc class permit and was ready to hit the road. Mom and Dad said Ok so I got my Yamaha 750cc and was on my way.

Had the bike a few months and one night at the dorm a friend and I hit the road on the bike for a lil fun and bar hopping in the town over. We get on our way down a somewhat windy road and make it there ok. Have few drinks, a good time and are ready to head back so my buddy hops on the back and we are on our way home.

We end up behind a dumpster truck going a lil too slow for my liking and I decided to make a pass on the next straight away. So I go to make the pass and just as I start to ease in on the throttle a bit a car crosses the the line and boom head on collision and I go for ride off the bike. Didn't get hurt to bad just a few bumps and bruises, police arrive I dust myself off and get myself together cause of course I was a bit shaken up. Police ask me if everything is ok I say yea wheres my buddy is he ok? "Huh what buddy are you sure you had a buddy" the police say, Yes of course, "Had a little too much to drink tonight have we" said the police no I am 100% sure my buddy was on the back. So the police start searching all over, through the woods, everywhere with no luck.

Great at this point I'm a lil worried I have to call my parents tell them what happened and my buddies parents, which I do. Hello Johnny's (arnauds buddy I cant remember the name so we will just call him Johnny) parents yea I uh had a lil accident "well is Johnny ok" well umm I don't know "is he alive" ummm well I dont know we ummm uhh can't find him.... at this moment but I will keep you posted.

Ok so about 2 hours later I get back to the dorm and here comes Johnny's ass walking in the door, Johnny you shit head where the hell have you been?? Are you ok?? We've been looking all over for you! Johnny proceeds to tell him that he woke up about an hour after the accident about 40 miles away, looking up at the sky, going down the road in the back of the dumpster truck which was filled with linens or some sort of soft material that padded his landing and he didn't have a scratch on him. So Johnny got catapulted off the back of the bike and luckily landed in the back of one of those big construction like dumpsters that was on the back of a truck moving down the highway none the less.


Interesting story Arnaud had has laughing our buts off just they way he told it was hilarious. I tried to recreate it as much as I could but I had a few Coronas in me and my recollection is bit shotty. I hope you get the idea none the less. Well untill the weekend, if I can get a decent internet connection, I'll be back to share a few more stories.