Weekend Review

At the beginning of the year, my wife and I sold a business we started up a few years back and we've received decent monthly payments. We got our final check for December, and decided to take a grand and have ourselves one last weekend of raunchy decadence and debauchery. And boy, did we ever...

We started by hitting the Muckleshoot at 10pm on Friday. My very first hand at the 4/8 table was KJs. Flop is KJx, there's a bet into me that I raise. He calls, and we see a Q on the Turn. He bets again and I raise again. River is another J, and this time I'm in for 3 bets. I show my awesome opening Full House, he shows QQ for a bigger one. Little did I know that was going to be the foundation for the rest of the weekend. I won't go into any more hand histories, as the memories are too painful, but suffice it to say, too many of my great hands just couldn't hold up. I saw more quads than I'd ever seen before, and unfortunately I was on the wrong end of them.

Obviously, my first buy-in didn't last too long. I made my 2nd rack last until 4am when the table finally broke down. As I was moving to a new table, I saw a crowd around the craps table (well, a crowd for 4am in the morning). Talked my wife into racking up what was left of her stack and throwing some dice with me. Best decision of the night, as the first time she touched the dice she had a 16-roll hot streak. At one point, she rolled 4-6-4-6-4, and I had Place bets and Come bets with max odds that paid off nicely. After her roll, we were up $250, which helped to cover our Poker losses and then some.

We were back in the Poker room and settled into a friendlier game of 3/6 for the rest of the night/morning. It was 9am when that table broke down and I'd been up for over 24 hours now. Down a total of $200 and decided to go home for a bit.

Gambling Hours: 11
Amount Remaining: $800

We both got a few hours of sleep, woke up around 3pm, spent the rest of the day/evening with the kids, and then we were back on the road at 10. Went to the Midway first this time. Apparently people had better things to do that Saturday night as it was pretty slow and there was no one left to play by 2am. Shawni was up $150, $50 of which was from my rack... that's why I hate to play at the same table as her, but we didn't have much choice.

Gambling Hours: 15
Amount Remaining: $900

We decided against the Muckleshoot as it seemed our luck never held up there, so we went up the street to another privately-owned card room, the Silver Dollar (which has a number of locations around Washington). While waiting for a table, Shawni played some 3-Card Poker. The first few hands, she didn't play the Pair Plus bonus/sucker bet. I told her to play it, and when it didn't hit, I was the one that got hit, usuallly by her elbow in my stomach. She eventually started playing it every hand, but one hand she was distracted and didn't put the bet up. I didn't want to say anything for fear of any more bodily injury. She caught herself and did try to put the bet up but pulled it back when she saw the cards were already dealt. Of course, she had the Straight Flush (789d) which would have paid $200. She asked the floor if there was any recourse, but since she pulled her bet back, there was nothing they could do. She should have just left it up and let them review the tape to see she had placed it before looking at her cards. But oh well.

We both got seated shortly after that, her at 3/6, me at 4/8. One funny hand when the cards got dealt too close together and I reached for the wrong card. The guy next to me said, "Whoa! That one's yours, this is mine..." He looks, mucks, "Shit, you didn't want it anyways." He had 35, but his careful eye made sure I got my Pocket 8s, which hit a set on the flop. I tossed him a red chip that was in the pot and thanked him for watching out for me.

We only got to play for about an hour as the place closed at 5am. She was down a rack, I was up $50; and playing a few hands of Pai-Gow before we left paid off with a $50 win on Quads, so we left with the same amount we walked in with.

Gambling Hours: 18
Amount Remaining: $900

Washington State requires that the privately-owned casinos close for 4 hours a day. Most are closed in the early morning hours after last call - 4am-8am, 6am-10am, etc., reopening in time to cater to the lunch crowd. But there's a couple places that close later and are able to catch the orphaned early-morning gamblers. One of those places, Chips, was open until noon and just happened to be up the street from the Silver Dollar we were at. Cool place - one of their promotions is that if your Pocket Aces are beat at showdown, they'll give you $30 anyways!

We waited for a table, and Shawni was back at the 3-Card Poker table. Three hands in, she gets a Straight Flush again, and this time, there was a bet out there! $200 pocketed for our poker buy-in! They opened a new table at 6am, and thus the beatings began. If I held in a hand, I missed completely or got beat on the river. If I folded, my gut-shot showed up. If I was out pre-flop, I'd see what would have been the winning hand on the board. Within 2 hours, I was down $200 and decided to go nap in the car. At 10am, Shawni woke me up - she was down $200 as well, and told me all her bad-beat stories as we drove back towards the Muckleshoot.

Gambling Hours: 23 (includes a 2 hour nap for me)
Amount Remaining: $700

Back at the 'Shoot, she decided to take her half+ ($400) and hit the 10/20 tables again. I would have done the same but there was only one table and didn't want to have to play against her, so I ended up at a 4/8 table. Deja vu. I gave away $150 in less than an hour. Before buying back in with my last $150, I remembered what we had set out to do this weekend, and that was to have fun. Obviously the poker tables weren't treating me nice and just frustrating me, so I got up and headed over to my first love, the Craps table. Not fifteen minutes later, Shawni was by my side with her last $100 in chips. She had come to the same conclusion about spending the last of what we had just to have fun.

For the next few hours, we took the last $250 and hit every game at the casino. Down a few bucks at Craps. Up $50 thanks to the Roulette wheel. A couple of lucky guesses at Bacarrat. Video Poker treated us just as bad as real poker. One spin of a $5 slot machine paid off $100. We took a short lunch break at about 3pm, and then continued on our whirlwind tour.

Gambling Hours: 31
Amount Remaining: $350

It was about 6pm when I threw down $50 for one hand of Blackjack. It was a good one, and brought us back up to an even $400. we decided to end our night (day?) back where we started - at the Midway. Shawni wanted to stop at home first to rinse off. We had both been up for over 24 hours, again, and somewhat delirious at this point.

Got home, sat in my big comfy couch, just to rest my eyes for a minute, which of course turned into a couple of hours, and we never did make it back to the Midway. The $400 in the Poker money box will be extra Christmas money now, and we're putting a moratorium on gambling weekends for awhile, at least until we find out what our cash flow situation will be for 2005.

It was a frustrating weekend. I felt a lot like Bad Luck Schleprock over here, not being able to win for anything. It was no surprise that on Monday morning, on the way to work, I called into a radio station to win tickets for a premiere movie showing, was the winning caller #25, and then my cell phone cut out before they could get my info. Not to mention coming home and watching the Seahawks get creamed.

If we keep to our self-imposed Casino ban, I guess there won't be much to write about. At least I'll be able to catch up on some reading and live vicariously through some real winners! Sometime early 2005 I'll put some money into an online poker account and see how those tables treat me. Until then, I'll be sitting at Freeroll tables, and most importantly, having fun. :)