We made the drive over to Turning Stone casino on Sunday afternoon. It was a little less than 2 hours from Albany. I had previously made reservations through the poker room and was able to secure the room at the special rate of $75. As we were standing in line to check in, I could overhear the receptionist quoting the room rate as $168 to the people in front of us. I felt like a winner already.
We got one of the suite in their newly built Tower Hotel. I must say that I was very impressed. The room was very clean and everything about it was top notch. After settling in, we decided to go downstairs for dinner. As we were walking past the Craps table, I decided to give it a roll to see if I could win the money for dinner. What a great decision that was. I had a nice little run for a $250 profit. Dinner paid for!
We ate at the Forest Grille and both had the filet mignon. The food was excellent and well worth the $120 bill. The only complaint/drawback was that we didn't realize that we were on a dry Indian reservation which meant that we were not able to enjoy some drinks with our meals.
After dinner, I went to try to pre-register for Monday's tournament but they had stopped pre-registering and I would have to do it the next day prior to the start of the tournament. They did tell me that 200 people have already registered and that they would take an additional 100 on Monday. So we decided to spend the rest of the night playing blackjack. I gave back some of my winnings from the craps table earlier but still ended up a winner for the night.
Monday morning, I got up at 7:00 to be one of the first in line when the tournament registration starts at 8:00. I had no trouble registering and paid my $230 entry fee. The tournament was not scheduled to start into 10:00 that morning so I had time to go back up to the room and wake up the wife to go have breakfast.
Of course the tournament didn't start on time. Finally about 10:30, we got started. The structure was not bad. We each started with $2500 chips and blinds were 25-50 with 30 minutes round. A total of 294 people entered with top 25 getting paid. First place money was a little over $16k. I was in the SB on the very first hand and got dealt 45 offsuit. It was a community pot and I just completed the bet. I flopped 2 pairs and won a nice little pot.
I didn't play any big pots and managed to get my chip count up to about $4000 at one point but lost about half of it before the break. After 3 levels, we got a 30 minutes break. There must have been about 200 people left at this point. After we got back from the break, the blinds were at 75-150 and i had exactly $2000 left. I got dealt AQ unsuited and made it $500 to go. It folds around to the button who has me slightly covered and he announces that he is all-in. I think about it for 30 seconds and just felt like he had AK. I think I would have probably called even if I knew that he had a small pocket pair and gambled. However, he would have me dominated with his AK and I would have been in bad shape. I grudgingly fold and wait for a better spot, but now I am in a world of trouble with only $1500 left. Two hands later, I look down and see cowboys. Bells start to go off in my head and I am so proud of folding my AQ earlier.
This time, I make it $400 to go and I get one caller. He is one of the chip leader at the table. The flop comes down rag-rag-J. I check my hand and the other guy bets out $400. I instantly reraise all-in. I turn over my Kings, but I am devastated when he turns over his Jacks for the flopped set. The turn and river was no help and I am out of the tourney.
I entered a $59 single table shootout tournament to win $500 in tournament lammers. After an hour and a half of play, we got heads up but I was a 2-1 chip underdog. The guy offers me a deal to take $200 in cash. I figure that it was a pretty good deal since I wouldn't have to deal with trying to resell the tournament lammers even if I won. I took the deal.
My wife could tell that I was upset from busting out of the tournament and she asked me if I wanted to extend our stay for one day so I can play more single table shootouts. I am not sure how I got so lucky when I married her.
Surreal moment of the trip: Monday night, we were watching the $30-6o game while I was waiting for my name to be called. There was a lot of jawing going on and you could just feel the intensity. The pots were huge. On one particular hand, this guy raised every street with his AJ on a rags board. After the final card is dealt, the other guy slow rolls him with the straight. Initial raiser turns beet red and starts blurting out F bombs. The next thing you know he comes flying across the table and cold decks the other guy. It takes 4 or 5 security/casino personnel to seperate them. My wife looks at me and asks me if we are on the set of TILT. I have never witnessed anything like that. Poker is definitely a contact sport.
