Wild Night in Par-A-Dice

Having one of my Fridays off work in summer, I decided to make an afternoon jaunt yesterday to the nearest poker room -- the Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria, IL. Par-A-Dice is one of the old riverboat casinos that no longer sails.

I had phoned during my drive there to get on the $1/2 NL waiting list. When I got to the poker room there were actually a few open seats. I believe this was the first or one of the first times that I had ever been seated there immediately. Good start.

My table was aggressive. One guy raised every hand and seemed to be the closest thing to a table captain. We saw that he was getting pretty lucky and catching cards. Noted. Before the night was over he contributed several hundred dollars to the table.

I bled some chips initially but had to mostly stay on the sidelines due to my poor starting hands. I was able to work my stack to slightly back over starting level when I began to get some decent cards. This especially helped against a table with loose aggro players. I knew who to call down light and starting building my stack. I extracted maximum value of a couple of flopped sets and just kept building the stack as the night went on. I only had trouble with one player at the table. I met up with him briefly after the session as I was cooling down by playing a few slots. He congratulated me for playing so well (yeah - I do occasionally demonstrate some mad skilz!) and I let him know what a pain in the butt he was to me. He couldn't believe how people kept paying me off when I consistently -- and obviously -- had the goods.

I cashed out with a very nice profit -- the largest I have ever had at Par-A-Dice. I was pretty pleased with my play and don't remember making any stupid calls, which has been one of my leaks.

There were a couple of bad beats on the night. The biggest one was that the poker room bad beat jackpot was hit on the table next to mine. Only players at that table got a share of the jackpot. Rats!

On the way home it appeared that my car was running a tad funny. Pretty soon it became apparent that I had a tire problem and was forced tom pull over to the side of the interstate. My right rear tire was almost out of air. At Midnight. On a dark stretch of interstate. With trucks barrelling past. Wonderful.

Things didn't improve when I couldn't find the lug wrench in my trunk. I called the police for a little assistance. After I spoke with the trooper, I had him call a towing company so that they could block the area and change the tire in the dark. Now, those bloggers who know that I have a reputation for being "frugal" might be surprised to hear that. But I have to tell you, it is kind of scary thinking about changing your tire in the dark with trucks whizzing past you. Good call on my part.

Before the trooper left, he advised me get in my car for safety until the tow truck arrived. What? So if someone is tired or drunk and hits my car I die instantly? No thanks -- I stayed in the ditch and kept a close eye on the approaching traffic.

Got the donut spare tire on and drove home at a moderate speed the rest of the way. I finally got home after 2:00 a.m. this morning. Just another tricky day.