Friday, November 08, 2024

Of TBC, Dallas Poker Clubs, Oklahoma Poker, and family visits: My Road Trip of Oct 23-27, 2024

For several years, Tony Bigcharles and I had talked about taking a road trip so that Tony could visit his mother in rural Kansas. With Tony always on the go and with my living in Phoenix, the trip never came about. However, after returning from a vacation with my wife to Greece, I saw what appeared to be the perfect spot in my calendar for me to go. I made a deal with Tony that if he would handle all expenses, I would drive him to see his mom. He agreed, and I spent several hours looking at plane flights, rental cars, hotel rooms, and poker rooms so that we could make the trip at a decent price while staying in decent hotels. Everything came into place, and the wheels were set in motion for me to leave the morning of Wednesday, October 23 and get back home late night on Sunday, October 27.

Wed, Oct 23, 2024
The trip started with my flight from Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix. A big thank you to Alysia Chang, who ordered me a Starbucks coffee while I was waiting for my flight to leave. Kudos to Frontier Airlines, which had a modest price for my flight to Dallas, and gave me a free aisle seat in the front of the plane.

The trip to DFW was unremarkable, and soon I was headed on the shuttle to the car rental center. I had decided to rent a Chevy Malibu for its combination of comfort and gas mileage, and was able to pick out my choice at Hertz. I drove to Tony's hotel, assisted with a little clean up, and then headed for something to eat before we played poker. Our first poker club stop: Peaks Dallas. Texas, as you might know, does not have casinos but does have private poker clubs. You pay a membership fee ($10 for the day is standard, but as a new player, I only had to pay $1) and instead of having rake taken out of pots, you pay an hourly fee. In this case, it was $13/hour, which seems to be pretty standard. I did vlog this first session:


Tony had a really good session (watch the vlog for details), whereas I was pretty much card dead and ended up with a HUGE profit of $20, playing a mixed Hold em/Omaha game until moving to a $1/2 NLHE game. They were able to do bomb pots, which are always fun.

We then moved to another private club, Shuffle 214 Dallas. I lost some money initially, then got it and more back when I had a couple of nice hands, including pocket Kings. I played them the lightning way, not the Robvegaspoker way. I was sitting pretty until I was the small blind with the button straddling. I had a pretty Ah-Qh and raised to $15. The straddler re-raised to $40, and I called. The flop was 8-Q-8. The player who straddled had been caught semi-bluffing a short time before, and frankly, I didn't believe him. I raised and he only called. The turn was a blank, and I decided to put him to the test. I felt pretty confident that I was ahead. I jammed all in, which he clearly was not expecting. He went into the tank for several minutes, which seemed like hours. He started saying things like "What do you have? Q-Q? A-Q?" When he mentioned A-Q, I thought I might be in trouble. Finally he decided to call and asked how many times I'd like to run it. I said twice. He then flipped over ... K-K! I got no help on either run out and he stacked me for a pot of over $1,000. Yuck. He then started telling me what a great play I'd made since he ALMOST folded. Meh. Tony lost some at Shuffle, and that was the end of the night. Not a great poker start to the trip.

Thurs, Oct 24, 2024
We checked out of Tony's hotel suite (I slept on the hide-a-bed in the living room), and made the drive into Oklahoma to play at Choctaw Casino & Resort in Durant. The poker room was pretty dead and had two tables of $1/2 NL going. Tony and I were seated at different tables. Once again, I was pretty much card dead and did lose a couple of pots when guys stuck in a hand when way behind and got a lucky river card. I lost part of a buy in, and Tony lost. He then headed to the video blackjack machines while I played some slots. I liked the poker room and also the rest of the casino. Looking back, we stayed there way too long, as we had a 350 mile drive to Kansas to make that afternoon and evening. I was determined to get us to our hotel, but Tony was trying to persuade me to stop somewhere else along the way. It was really dark until we were greeted with some lightning, then rain. However, We kept going, getting to our hotel at about 11:00pm.

Fri, Oct 25, 2024
After waking up and getting a nice meal in the Comfort Inn breakfast area, we headed to his mother's place. The plan was to drop Tony off at 9:00am. He would then stay the rest of the day and night at his mother's house, while I would have a nice day of relaxation. We got there shortly after 9. I met Tony's mother for the first time. We had a nice conversation before I left and headed out of town. I decided to stay at the same hotel that Tony and I stayed at Thursday night. I got to the parking lot shortly before noon and was deciding about going in to see if I could check into my new room a little early. I ended up taking a 3+ hour nap in the car!

I had a nice quiet, relaxing evening, watching the World Series on television and swimming in the indoor heated pool. Tony, meanwhile, was staying in his mom's basement. He had mentioned staying there in the past. I envisioned a dungeon, complete with trolls and dragons. In reality, the basement had been fixed up years ago as a very nice apartment for Tony's son. Since his mother went to sleep very early, Tony was able to go online and search out blackjack games, unfortunately. The results were predictable, unfortunately. If only he could kick this nasty habit.

Sat, Oct 26, 2024
After another hearty Comfort Inn breakfast, I drove the 30+ minutes to Tony's mother's house to pick up Tony. We then got to his son's (Mark's) place shortly after 10:00am. I met his roommate, and the we drove off to take Mark out to one his his favorite spots, Wendy's. When the local bowling center opened at 11:30, we went inside to go bowling. I opted to oversee the electronic scoring so that father and son could have this time to bowl together. They had separate lanes to bowl on, and I saw an unbelievable display by Mark, a regular bowler, as he bowled eight games in 52 minutes, with scores  ranging from 121 to 188. It was quite a performance. Tony did okay for a person who never bowls, bowling three games in 35 minutes before deciding to give his arm a rest. 


This was when we ran into our complication in the visit. Mark was supposed to be back by 2:00pm, but we had to make a trip back to Tony's mother's house because Tony inadvertently left his phone there. Mark wanted to go with us to see his grandmother, but decided not to at the last minute. He had us drop him off back at the bowling alley, where a ride home had been arranged for later that afternoon. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication dealing with Mark and times which came back to haunt us later. That was unfortunate, as the three of us had a fun time bowling, riding around, and just having fun talking as guys would in that situation. I gave props to Tony for doing a good job interacting with his son. He was patient and  bought several pair of reading glasses, a set of headphones and a bowling gift card for Mark. But now it was time to hit the road, as we needed to drive 250 miles to get to our hotel in Norman, Oklahoma. The hotel was adjacent to the Riverwind Casino. After checking in, we headed to the poker room, where we had a substantial wait to be seated.

I was not doing well at our $1/3 NL table and decided to take a break. I resurfaced at a $1/2 table and did well, more than covering my loss at the first session. We went back to the hotel, where I posted this vlog:


It was time to call it a night. We would have a long day on Sunday, the final day of the trip.

Sun, Oct 27, 2024
We woke up, had breakfast, and decided to put in one  last session at Riverwind. I had an absolute horror of a session -- one of those where you get beat almost every hand, I raised on the button with Ad-Kd. I got two callers, one of whom stuck in the hand with me. The flop was 10-K-rag, a good flop for me. My raise was called by one player. After the turn put two cards to a flush on the board, my opponent checked and I shoved to make sure the price high if he was going for the flush. To my horror, he called and flipped over pocket 10s. Oops! A  few hands later, I again had Ad-Kd and was in a hand that had been raised by TBC. The flop was Queen high with two diamond on the board. When short stacked Tony raised, I shoved. He called with his K-Q. My flush didn't get there. Boo! I ran into set for the second time in my session and finally called it quits when my A-K lost to K-Q --- again! There were several more times when the poker gods pissed on me that session. It was horrible!

Tony and I got in some machine time which, looking back, was a mistake as it took too much time. We got in the car and drove the 100 miles to WinStar World Casino in Thackerville. It was ginormous! We were running out of time and did not play poker there. I did see the poker room and was surprised how little action was going on. Whereas I liked both Choctaw and Riverwind casinos, I didn't particularly like WinStar because it was so big. Row after row of slot machines. Ugh.

We headed back to Dallas, where I dropped Tony off at his new hotel and then at one of the Dallas poker clubs. We said goodbye and I headed to the DFW Airport to drop off my rental car. My night flight left a little late, but it made up for the lost time on the flight back to Phoenix. It was the end of an exhausting five days.

I have chosen to say little about the miscommunication regarding Tony's son and the visit. I was upset, however, by the tone and content of the emails I received from Tony's mom Saturday night. I give props to Tony for responding to her and sticking up for me and himself. I was determined not to let her ruin what had been a fun and enjoyable trip.

Some statistics:
Days: 5
Flights: 2
Flight miles: 1,760
Rental car miles: 1,165
Satisfaction of seeing Tony with his mother and then his son: Priceless beyond words

Some people asked me why I did this. The best answer I can give comes from my Catholic upbringing.

Luke 12:48: Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required.

Mathew 25:35-40: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?" And the King will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."

Thanks for reading!

2 Comments:

Blogger Pokerluckbox said...

Sounds like a good road trip. Thanks

4:31 PM  
Blogger Koala said...

Saint John aka Lightning. You are indeed a good man John.

9:51 PM  

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