Well, I’d like to say there was a good reason why it took me so long to make this post, but the simple fact is, I’ve been busy and I’m lazy. Plus I needed to sit down with Kat’s computer to make the window picture (with kat’s help of course).
Lake Charles, the trip report
I’ve always thought good trip reports were fun to read, but I’ve never talked myself into writing one. Even at work, where it’s strongly recommended, I just never seem to get around to it. Well, here’s my attempt at writing one for the Lake Charles New Year’s Eve trip.
The players: (in clockwise order from the top left)
MerriSue, Brian, Stan, McP, me, Jason, Kat, Dan,
and Xuan (pronounced just like Billy Corigan’s ill
fated projet – Zwan)
The plan:
Fit nine people in two cars and drive to Lake Charles, LA at noon on New Year’s Eve, for a weekend of drinking and gambling and drinking (which are the only things to do in Lake Charles). Stay in a couple rooms at the fabulous Super 8 in the heart of Lake Charles.
The story:
It all got off to a relatively good start. Everyone met at the dan/brian house relatively on-time (some people on Xuan-time). After much discussion an executive decision was made for lunch plans and we were off to Buffet Palace, the Jewel of Buffet. With food in our stomachs it was time to make the 5 hour drive to Lake Charles. The whole weekend was off to a good start when McP mooned us from the other car about 30 minutes into the trip (sorry, no pictures). The rest of the drive was uneventful and we managed to make it to LA in a record (for me anyway) 4.5 hours. After getting everything unpacked, we headed to the best restaurant in Lake Charles, Copeland’s. This was definitely a sign of the time we were going to have. For those of you that have never been to Louisiana before, the state is completely lacking in service. I guess everyone there is resigned to be lazy because they live in a nasty cesspool. Either way, it was a challenge to get a drink from the bar at Copeland’s while we waited around and hour for a table. The bar there was completely swamped so I really do feel for the bartenders, but the restaurant really should have staffed more employees. Once we finally got seated, we continued to have bad service from our waitress, who took forever to bring us the bottle of wine that we ordered. It took so long to get the bottle that we considered sending it back since we had already finished our meals. Finally we got out of Copeland’s and were on our way to Harrah’s for the real fun – gambling.
We opted to go to Harrah’s on New Year’s Eve rather than Coushatta in Kinder because no one wanted to have the responsibility of driving back (it’s a 40 minute drive to Kinder) and Harrah’s had a free shuttle service to our hotel. Harrah’s consists of two boats, with all the useful stuff on the second floor of each (as if that’s not a pain in the ass). Me, Kat, Dan, Jason, and McP immediately got on the list for 3-6-12 hold’em. I’ve never played limit like this, but the first two betting rounds are $3, the thurn is $6, and the river has an option of $6 or $12. Strange. This last rule made the game pretty expensive to play. Just to cap the river is going to cost you $48. Add that to the fact that people at Harrah’s are playing insane hands and it’ll get really expensive. After being on the list for about 15 minutes they started filtering us in to the tables. McP and I got seated at the same table. I got Seat 1, and McP in Seat 9. In Seat 5 was a guy who raised every hand. He was hitting like crazy too. They guy must have had around $600 sitting in front of him and was hitting with hands like 8-4o and 9-2o. He was extremely loud and obnoxious too. Midnight rolled around and all that business happened – champagne, kissing, blah,blah – not terribly exciting. After four or five hours, Kat and Jason decided to call it a night, along with the other non-poker peoples. Apparently the table stakes at Harrah’s were steep (like $15 blackjack and $25 for pai-gow), so I totally understand why everyone wanted to bail so early. On top of that, unbeknownst to me, no one was getting good drink service, except for me. By the time I had 10 crown&cokes, I had misread a hand (clear indication to me that it’s time to switch to water for a while). When Kat asked me when I was leaving, I nodded at the obnoxious guy who was raising every pot and said “When he’s broke.” About an hour later he was broke and got up for a minute. When I went to the bathroom, I saw him at the ATM withdrawing more money. It was going to be a long night indeed. He eventually busted out again and took off from the table around 5:30. I was up a little over $100, so I decided it was time to call it a night too. Overall I thought the pokerroom at Harrah’s was alright. I’m not sure how much of the traffic was regulars and how much was holiday traffic, but people were playing crazy. There would routinely be 7 people in a raised pot preflop. In fact, there were hands that were capped preflop with 7 players. And I thought Party Poker was loose. The dealers were alright, but nothing to write home about. Most didn’t maintain a good amount of control over the game and I was utterly surprised at the amout of table talk that they let pass. I also had a couple dealers that would not correct overbets so people who couldn’t count their bets ended up adding extra money to pots. This is a rule that I wish would be used at all casinos. If you consistently overbet a pot because you can’t figure out how much to bet, the dealer should give up on taking care of it for you. Learn to count!
The next day, everyone that went home early woke up and went to Coushatta early (as in sometime before 4pm). The rest of us slept in for a while and managed to get ourselves up there by the middle of the afternoon. Once I got there, I grabbed Kat from the sportsbar and we headed straight for the poker room. I liked the poker room a little better than Harrah’s, with a few exceptions. The guy running the room let multiple tables go shorthanded for some time when there was a list. Once again, dealers let horrendous amounts of table talk go on and never said anything to people that showed their hands to players that were still actively in the game. But the chairs were nicer and the drink service was definitely better than Harrah’s. The game was just as crazy as Harrah’s though. I was down for a long time but after 5 hours or so started getting back up a decent amount. There was once again an insanely loose player sitting in Seat 5 (I was again in Seat 1) and I decided that I wasn’t leaving until he did. The guy had $600 in front of him (though I had already watched him rebuy for $500) and I wanted to stay there until he left. Unfortunately, he left before I could get any of his money and I ended up with three extremely loose players at my table, who were continuing a tilt-feud from a previous table. This hand was the end of me. I had AKs from early position, I raised, and by the time it got back to me it was capped. Flop came out 5-6-7 rainbow; I bet, someone raised and everyone else folded. I called and tried to place him on a hand. The turn came K, and he got really excited and bet out agian. I called and placed him on either AA or KK. The river was another K, so I assumed my hand was either good, or we were going to split the pot. He bet $12 and I raised him, he turned right back around and re-raised me. I called, thinking we were going to split the pot, only to see him turn over 7-7 for a full house. That one really hurt. And that was when I decided that I needed to leave the table and do something else. I ended up down $100, basically breaking even for the trip. Booooooo!
The end:
The true end of the trip was the 2am breakfast buffet at Coushatta.
The album cover for the first Stan, Xuan, Brian, McP, Kat supergroup release,
coming to soon to a snooty record store near you
ERDS!!!
This was a nice wrap up to the whole event. The buffet was mostly empty so we had a whole section to ourselves. My food tasted extra good since Kat and I had been comped our meal for our time in the poker room. Free food is tasty. We also managed to get the best service we had the entire trip. 2am in a casino buffet. Who would’ve thought?
Although the service was great, the waitress’ picture taking skills were not.
The trip back was uneventful. No mooning, no car accidents, no speeding tickets. Just laughing to myself about the obsurd 4am idea to request a 6am wakeup call for the other room. It was hilarious at the time. Trust me.