I've finally come down from a wild holiday ride. Let's do a quick recap. It all started at BD's for the Turkey Day jam which led to a trip to Seattle for a couple of days the following week. Then I was jamming hard to get ready for our end of Quarter/end of Year (remember, I'm in Sales!). Then I flew to Vegas to see the parental units for our holiday get together and I played cards all week. Then I got neck deep into end of Quarter/end of Year, spent three days head-down grinding out a new customer demo for a nice deal. Slept through Christmas to recharge my batteries a bit since I wasn't done yet. Made with the New Years celebrations stuff with the guys, Flew to Seattle and watched the Long Horns make me some money (Love that Vince Young guy). Started a couple of deals rolling for this quarter, then jumped on a plane to Orlando for our Annual Sales Kickoff meeting at Disney World, where I slept a grand total of 19 hours from Sunday through Friday the 13th (Happy 31st Birthday to me!!!). Which finally brings me to today. Shit, I'm tired.
I haven't been writing because I frankly haven't seen a lot of interesting things lately. I summarized pretty much the last 45 days in one paragraph and that's exactly what it fealt like to me, nothing more than a blur of lights and faces and "I'll have another one". I have been playing at Cache Creek a lot in their No-Limit games because I needed to get my bankroll repaired quickly before my February trip to, drumroll please, Vegas! What quicker way than cleaning off the tables in No-Limit where there are 4 guys in the room that know how to play. The rest just learned by watching the Travel Channel. True rookies. So those sessions are getting me unstuck pretty quickly, I'm already clocked in with a pretty nice upside since my last poker post.
Where things got really interesting lately was the huge interest that I got when I sent out an email about hosting a game at the Disney World Sales Kick-off meeting this past week. I had a list long enough for 2 tables! I guess like me, there are not a lot of Mouseketeers in our company.
So, I brought the chips and made it a truly magical place by hosting a cash No-Limit Texas Hold 'em poker game all week for the other trapped co-workers. Why we ever do these things outside of Vegas is beyond me (Note: We do go to Vegas every other year).
The game went pretty much as I expected, but I relaxed the rules although I still cringed inside every time a string bet or action out of turn or any other obviously poor etiquette took place. I just kept the game moving.
I got some great help keeping things moving by Brandon R. and Pete D. too! They both dealt full time to keep the cards flying in a timely fashion. I was really happy at their skill with the deck and pot management, unfortunately I think that I was the only person that tipped them, but I did tip a lot, even when I wasn't in the hand. If I saw them do the right thing, then I voted by throwing them a chip. I love good dealers and there aren't many of them, so I make sure to take care of them extra special like. I also toked Pete and Brandon an extra $20 out of my own stack at the end of the game on the last night as an extra bonus for doing such a great job and...helping me get to the "Long Run" that much quicker and efficiently. ;-)
For the most part the games were a "No Rough Stuff" kind of deal. I didn't see anything that I haven't already seen hundreds of times before over the years. Poker always brings out a person's true nature and it was interesting to see some of my co-workers expose that true nature and it didn't match the day to day. I won't get into any specifics, but suffice to say that people only get truly crazy and furious over Love and Money. I got to some lightning and rockets fly where I didn't expect it, but I don't see these guys on a daily basis.
When it was all said and done, I got quite a few pats on the back for hosting the game. Which made dragging my chips across country seem worthwhile. I'm glad that everyone had a good time and I'll probably be getting a few new readers since a couple of the guys expressed interest in The3Seat.com. Now if only I could have figured out how to work in more than 4 hours of sleep each night, but I made it!
When I finally made it to the Airport to fly home, it was a full flight and once we were all packed in they announced, "We haven't been cleared to push due to bad weather in Atlanta, so we'll have to wait here for an hour..." People still wonder why I hate travelling for a living. Ladies and Gentlemen, good night!
Game: No-Limit Hold 'em
Location: Cache Creek and Disney World (Multiple sessions)
Net Gain/Loss: $2,800
Time: 58.0 Hours
Nicholas has left the 3s