Saturday morning
2:30 am, Ines came by and picked me up after picking up Frank. The plan was the chill at Ines' place until our flight (6:30 am). Frank slept on the sofa but I wasn't really tired so I went upstairs (sitting on their new chair) and read one of the craps books that Kirk had lent me. As 4 am approached, I heard Ines' alarm go off but no one came out haha. At 4:45 Ines came downstairs finally and we departed to pick up April at right about 5:30. We got to the airport in plenty of time, and fortunately the Las Vegas southwest gate isn't at the furthest end of the Oakland Airport. Thanks to a heads up by Francis, we had printed out our boarding passes already earlier that morning, thus we were in Group A. w00t. Except for April, she had forgotten to print hers out, so she ended up in group C haha! Well it didn't matter much since Ines saved a seat for her. I unwisely had downed a redbull prior to leaving Ines' house so I was wide awake. Everyone had a little breakfast and right at 6:30, we boarded. Now good ol' Francis decides that we're gonna try to steal the entire row for ourselves, despite the Captain's announcements that it was a full flight. Of course, with MY darn luck, the very last person needing a seat, is the BIGGEST guy on the plane, some 6'5 240 lb 50 year old dad. holy cow. Frank falls asleep right away so I'm stuck conversing with this gentlemen for the entire plane ride. Now don't get me wrong, he was a real nice guy and I enjoyed the first 15 minutes of conversation about poker and stuff, but he just wouldn't stop talking and I was racking my brain trying to listen in to his rants on politics and this and that. I even put in my earphones at one point... only to have him tap me on the shoulder to talk some more hahah. Sigh.. fortunately the plane landed right on time. I didn't even get a chance to read the sucky Entertainment magazine that I had purchased right before we boarded. It's not that great of a mag anyways.
The cab ride there was amusing. Ines asked me if she could borrow my mp3 player and then asked what type of music I had on there. I think April said "chinese love songs" and next thing I know the cabbie started rippin' on me haha.
We were dropped off at the "old" Mandalay Bay, where the friday night crew already had 2 rooms. We waited downstairs for Tim to come get us, and Tim arrives with total bloodshot eyes and still garbed in last night's attire haha. First went into the room that Olivia, Amanda, Pang, Steve, and Ricky were in. Ines, Frank, and April proceeded to camp out on the floor while Amanda and Olivia collaborated and booted Pang out of bed with a fierce kick ahha. I moseyed over to the other room, with Jerry, Chen (on the floor), Tami, and Jay. Everyone was still sleeping or half-asleep so I just sat in the chair and probably dozed off for like 20 minutes. woke up hella cold and then decided to lie on the floor for another 20 minutes. I think my body temperature fell 20 degrees from the AC heh. Anyways, eventually Jerry, Chen, and I decided to head downstairs to play some poker. We didn't have to wait long, as within 5 minutes, they opened up a new table and sat all of us together. sweet. There were two really bad players to the left of Chen, but none of us could get cards to snap up their dinero. The only decent player was this young korean guy 2 to my right. The guy directly to my right was superbly annoying, always asking me if I had it, when I would take down a pot w/o having to show, and then he'd always guess "2 pair right?" which was always wrong, but I'd just play along and say "yep!". haha. Jerry got off to a fast start, as this table was only 4/8, and he was up like $175 i think. But then he slowly started going down. He was still on the rush from winning like $300 or so the night before. I didn't get a hand to play until Jerry stood up and decided he was gonna walk around, so I took his seat and won 3 straight pots or so. I kept shivering for the first 45 minutes until the SLOW waitress finally came around with my coffee. Bunch of guys at the table were like "finally!" haha. Then I proceeded to spill some of it onto my shirt haha. I ended down $170 since I didn't catch any cards, and Jerry caught his river boat after I had him beat when I turned the nut straight. Aigoo. That pot cause me like $80 or so. I think I only made one critical mistake, which was not representing the nut flush against the korean kid on the flop. Instead I had top pair, top kicker, but he turned the k-frush, which I could've stolen the pot from him had I raised on the flop. that mistake cost me $30 to play catch-up and then to peek at the river haha. Chen played well, he had cards to play and made the most of them. solid as a rock.
Go to the next page
Ooooh Hilary.. Wish me home!