Sunday, December 28, 2008

Return to Las Vegas
Time for the first trip of the year to Las Vegas. I will be going January 24-28, 2009.

I suppose that everyone has been receiving multiple Las Vegas room offers in their e-mail in boxes each day. I know I have. Fortunately for me, my brother, the King of Komps, got two offers that he couldn't refuse. As a result, I will be staying with him in comped rooms at Bellagio and Encore, the newly opened extension of the Wynn Las Vegas. This is certainly a far cry from the early days of staying at places like the Westward Ho and Circus Circus manor motel rooms.

Strangely enough, I have never played poker at Bellagio. I have looked over its poker room, but the multiple online reports of poor treatment of the low limit players kept me from playing. Now that Bellagio is spreading $1/$2 NL and I will be staying there, I'll give it a try.

The Return of the Triple J

Yesterday was a special day for me as I met up with two former college buddies. The three of us had not actually been together for ten years. Amazing how time flies.

We had all gone to Quincy College (now Quincy University) in the late 1970's and early 1980's and were involved with the college's Circle K club. In fact, we used to bill ourselves as the Triple J of Circle K -- since we are all named John, of course.

We each traveled down different paths in life. JB was the computer geek of the group. Mind you, this was before anyone knew anything about computers. Mr Math Wiz (and therefore Mr Logical) has worked in the computer field since graduation and has crafted a nice life for himself along the Atlantic coast in Florida after several years in Texas. He started out to be pretty shy and withdrawn, but hanging out with two outgoing obnoxious buttholes changed that.

Gomer (or Crawdad or just Peckerhead) was the good ol' boy. He wore cowboy clothes and boots before wearing them became the rage and has probably uttered more quotable funny lines than any person I've ever known. He was very rigid and used to go to all his classes early just to make sure he wouldn't miss them. He went on to law school and has created a nice law practice for himself as an expert in defending people charged with DUI. This former pagan (as we called him) converted to Roman Catholicism several years ago. Who'd have believed it?

Me? I don't know how they'd describe me -- probably the acerbic one, the guy who had fun stirring the pot to keep things shaking. I guess I am lucky I didn't get smacked in the face every day. Plus, I used to make Gomer have a stroke on a regular basis since I always did things at the last minute. I majored in Psychology, went to graduate school, and have worked in higher education all my professional career. Gomer was shocked to find that I am Republican and have been since the early Reagan years.

In sharing stories and reliving the past, we discovered that we all lost our fathers in a two-year period. We have all had good professional careers and are in position to enjoy life a little. That was not much of a surprise to me since we were pretty bright, hard-working, motivated guys. It is gratifying to find out that doing the right things and doing them the right way turned out okay for each of us.

It is hard to believe that we have been friends for about thirty years. Some things never change ... except maybe JB's shyness and Gomer's discovery of a higher power. And oh yeah -- I got to the meet up early without having to pick up my freaking sport coat at the cleaners ...

Guinness World Record Poker Tournament

"Dear lightning36,

You finished the tournament in 8452nd place. A $20.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account. Congratulations! Thank you for participating."

I went completely card dead the second hour of the tournament. As the bubble got closer (a relative term for a tournament this size), I was so far behind and small stacked that I thought I would try to fold to the money. Fortunately, the guys at my table helped out -- good karma to them all. When we reached hand-for-hand at the bubble (tournament paid 8,750), I had 250 chips left! When everyone got done stalling, a bunch went out all at once and I slithered into the money.

Yes, it was fun participating in this tournament. PokerStars has been great this December with its many special, great promotions.

Da Bears

They suck. That is all.

5 Comments:

Blogger Memphis MOJO said...

The Guinness tournament was fun, and, hey, you won a little dough.

12:58 AM  
Blogger PokahDave said...

nice run in the PStars tourney...I went out somewhere thereabout...

11:10 AM  
Blogger Mondogarage said...

Have a blast -- if Encore is anything truly like Wynn on the inside, it's going to be sweet.

My biggest bad beat story of the weekend -- tried to register for the Guinness and was locked out for it being full 16 HOURS before it started. So sick. So sad. Congrats on being a part of it!

4:54 PM  
Blogger Mondogarage said...

Ya know what? I've never actually heard Murder By Death. However, based on your comment, I checked them out over allmusic.com, and while I couldn't listen right now (um, Good Doctor Mondo watching movie), from what I read, I suspect they're *really* good. Especially given that J.Robbins agreed to produce them at one point. If they really draw from stuff like Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, and the Decemberists...

Put it this way, if they were coming through Denco and I were available, I'd definitely try to go.

10:31 PM  
Blogger muhctim said...

Well done, Sir. Missed you at the Skillz Razz game. Both you and the Pirate Lawyer were awol, so confusion reigned, and by default, I prevailed. The blind donkey does find a carrot sometimes.

6:00 PM  

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