I spent Memorial Day weekend in the San Jose area visiting Kat. She set up this super sweet bed and breakfast deal for the weekend in Half Moon Bay (a 1 hr drive from Mountain View) so we spent the majority of the weekend hanging around the beach and generally being lazy. It was unbelievably awesome. A much needed change of pace. We did all the typical stuff youd expect out of a bed and breakfast weekend, walk along the beach, checked out Fitzgerald Marine Preserve, drove through the Purisima Creek Redwoods, ate some tasty foods, and watched the sunset (cause were all romantical and shit, yo). It really was fantastic.
And then, gambling?
Being that we are who we are, there was some casino action involved over the weekend. On the Friday before the weekend, we ventured back to Bay 101 for some poker action. The list was pretty long so I signed up for 2/4, 3/6 and 6/12 (since I had such good luck at it last time). Of course 6/12 came up first, so I prepared for the worst and started playingmy game. There were a lot of maniacs and within a couple hours, I was a bit shortstacked when A2s came at me in the big blind. There was a raise from a maniac that was shorter on chips than me, so I didnt feel guilty calling a preflop raise with 6 callers. The flop came 2-X-X. First person bets, maniac raises, one guy calls, it folds around to me (I call) and the original raiser folds. I was certain that neither of the two guys left in the hand has hit anything yet. Turn comes A and now with 2 pairI bet, maniac raises all in, other player calls, I call. River comes 2 and completes a flush draw. I bet, non-descript guy raises. I only have $11 left, so I re-raise all-in. Non-descript guy calls and flips over pocket aces. Theres a lesson in all of this. Beware the guy who calmly lets you do all the betting. Hell no doubt flip up the hand you werent even looking for. I had to rebuy, there were no two ways about it. Eventually, I won my money back and was actually up $200 for a while, but lost it all on a few straights and flushes that panned out for other players against my top pair, top kicker. I ended the session down $50. Not terrible, but not awesome either.
After the relaxing weekend on the coast, we decided to get some more poker action in on Monday afternoon. Since I have a strong desire to gamble everywhere, we went to Garden City Casino to check out their poker room. Its actually slightly closer than Bay 101 (I think) but on the I-280 side rather than the 101 side which means its more of a pain in the ass to get to from Kats place, even if it is closer.
Garden City
I could go on and on about Garden City. I could tell you about how its more crowded, dingy, and less professional than Bay 101. I could tell you that the dealers let all sorts of ridiculous table talk, players showing cards to other players in the hand, and even accidentally flip up mucked cards at the end of a hand. All of that stuff is interesting and true. My table was full of a bunch of regulars who routinely made deals to check out the rest of hands when heads up against other players they knew. It was silly and boring. I could tell you about how some regulars at my table made stupid obnoxious comments to Kat when she came by my table, but shes already covered that. I could tell you about the weird (seriously) Santa Cruz hippie that sat down next to meand managed to hit quads four times in three hours. Between him and the asshat to my left I found myself wishing there was a stronger cigarette smell to cover up their collective body odor. Instead of all that, Im going to tell you about the most interesting thing that happened while I there: visiting the bathroom.
The first thing I did after getting on the list was go to the bathroom. When I walked into the bathroom, I instantly see a short Asian man at a urinal swaying side to side emphatically as he urinates like a child underlining his name after he first discovered that you could write your name in the snow while pissing. Im not sure that my description does it justice. It was just flat strange. As if it couldnt get any weirder, the next time I went to the bathroom (2+ hrs later) another Asian guy was using the same urinal only this time instead of swaying side to side, hes making a humping motion. Not an exaggerated shaking it off humping motion when he was finished, but humping motion the entire time he was pissing. Either the people in this casino are strange, or there is something really special about that first urinal. And if there is something special about that first urinal, Id rather not know about it.
As far as *actual poker* goes, I played 3-4 hours of 3/6 and ended the evening up $50, evening out my poker for the trip. The most notable thing about the session was the number of quads that were hit. I counted 6 sets of quads all of which were for some huge pots. I hit quads myself (quad 2s) and destroyed a couple guys with AKs (See what happens when you dont raise the flop with AK?!?). The hippie hit quads four times. Twice with pocket pairs. Unbelievable . Wheres the bad beat jackpot when you need it? The most amazing quads came didnt involve anyone Ive mentioned so far. It went a little like this (cutting out all the preflop business). Guy in early position (EP) bets a flop that goes 10-10-4, called by late position (LP). Turn is a blank, EP bets, LP raises, EP calls. River is an A. EP bets, LP raises, EP re-raises (back and forth until EP is out of chips). EP flips up A-A, LP shows 10-10. It almost hurt to watch, but I didnt like either player so I was hoping that somehow theyd both lose. One loser is better than none though, thats what I always say.
Bay 101, revisited
On Tuesday, Kat had to work, so I made another stop at Bay 101. My plan was to play for a while and then see about entering the daily tournament at 9:45. I got to the casino around 8:00am (there were probably five tables working at the time). After some confusion and getting bumped on my slot for 6/12, I decided to bite the bullet and play 8/16 because no one was looking like they were going to be getting up any time soon and I didnt want to wait for another table to open up. I had an unbelievable run at 8/16 and in an hour an a half managed to be up $360. Yeah, it was ridiculously awesome. I dont think I could handle the swings though if I happened to hit a bad streak starting out. I mean, at one point I was up almost $500 and $140 vanished without blinking an eye. Happy with my winnings, I decided to play the tournament. $50 buy-in with $20 rebuys.
The tournament is an insane all-in fest for the first three rounds. You start with 500 in chips (1000 with the double rebuy) and people continually went all-in and rebought over and over again. One of the poker roommanagers told me that the last time he played the tournament he spent $280 on buyins. Insane in the membrane. I only spent $90, getting busted twice total. Both times I got busted I had the best starting hand. The first, pocket 7s with 300 in chips left, I pushed in late position to try to take some blinds. Reraises all-in, big blind calls us all. LP shows pocket 2s, big blind shows A-10. 10 spikes on the river. Once rebuys were over I had one hand where I doubled up and got to around 1300. A guy in early position raises to 400. I raise all-in with J-J to isolate and get one other caller. EP shows 10-10, other caller shows 6-6. Flop comes out J-9-2, turn Q, river K. This was the same fucking guy that spiked the 10 to bust me previously. Runner-runner straight. It hurt. I decided Id had enough poker for one day and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in a coffee shop in downtown San Jose catching up on email, talking to my work peoples and typing this.
Overall, it was an amazing weekend. Hopefully it’ll be enough rest to get me through to the Fourth of July, when I think I should look for some Vegas Centennial action. We’ll see how that pans out.