Thank God, finally home. End of the week travel tip: NEVER fly on America West. Their incompetence is absolutely unparalleled.
When I awoke this morning, it dawned on me why I really hate traveling for business, and it’s not any of the obvious things. Sure, I hate being away from Mrs. Head and the kids (dogs), but I can deal with that. It is an altogether more insidious and little noticed thing that makes traveling so bad……the toilet paper.
Given the average quality of the TP I encountered this week, I may as well have taken sheets of paper from the printer and wiped my ass with that. The company is paying $160/night for my room and the place doesn’t even have the decency to provide paper that is softer than asphalt. End of the week travel tip #2: Bring your own TP. Your ass will thank you.
I think I need to switch careers and become a bidet lobbyist.
Not much else was notable about the trip, other than the fact that on Wednesday I took a trip to the Wild Horse Resort and Casino for some live poker action. However, action was not in the cards, so to speak. In any of the places where I’ve played live poker, the lowest stakes you can get is 3/6. So, upon finding out that the WH spread a 2/4 game, I was pumped up to go let loose on a table that was sure to be full of chip slingers.
If I would have brought a video camera with me, I would be speaking to you today a more famous individual. Why? Because I would have been able to record something akin to capturing the Loch Ness Monster singing show tunes. I would have recorded something I have never heard of before, a TIGHT 2/4 game. Squeaky tight. So tight it made nuns seem positively slutty by comparison. Unreal. I actually took down blinds with a preflop raise. Twice.
I only had two hours to play, so putting in for a new seat would have left me with only half an hour or so, so I decided to stick it out. With the Jackpot drop there was $4 coming out of any pot with callers, so there were several pots that had only four or five bucks. On one of my preflop raises that took the blinds I showed the hammer trying to loosen these people up, and nothing happened.
There was a nice calling station to my right who put a pretty nasty beat on me, when his A5o took down my KK with runner runner 5’s. I actually laughed out loud when he turned up his cards, having called with no straight or flush draws and bottom pair on the turn with me betting the whole way. At least he didn’t raise me on the river. Having bought in with $40, his calling station ways sent him packing very shortly.
Enter the middle-aged asian guy who it seems just recently discovered the check-raise. If he was in a hand and anyone bet out before he did, you could expect a flop raise. But he wouldn’t lead out, he would only raise if someone else bet, it was kind of strange. It was also very obvious that he never had anything. If he led out, he had something, so all you had to do was get out and wait for the next one. If he raised, the way was clear to re-raise with impunity, which he would promptly chase and then fold on the river, good stuff. Unfortunately he got chewed up and spit out pretty quick as well. That was about it, though. We had a couple more bad players stop by and quickly lose their money, but mostly it was tight and pretty boring. Considering the rake and jackpot drop, I was happy to leave only $14 down. The only reason I left down that much was the splash pot hand.
At random times throughout the night, they would pick a table and dump a rack of white into the pot. Needless to say, at our 2/4 table the odds to chase were good, so I chased through the turn, else I would have ended my session dead even. Not a bad place, but not really a good one either. Maybe it was simply because it was a Wednesday, I’m not sure. Another strange thing was the fact that the highest game they were spreading was one table of 8/16. Again, most likely simply due to the fact it was a late Wednesday.
I'll be spending today and tomorrow getting reacquainted with my normal routine and hopefully getting some time at the tables and catching up on all of the blog reading.. I should return to the regular Thinking Big schedule on Monday. Until then, my head will simply be Much Bigger.
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