The next day I got to wear fresh clothes thanks the baggage jerk-offs finally removing their head from their asses. Today is Wednesday, so we have a couple of quick calls in the A.M. then we're off to Calgary for the remainder of the week.
The Marriot:
We arrived in Calgary in the late afternoon. I even managed to retrieve my bag from the carousel, although they did make me wait a bit; just enough to get me nervous.
I had heard nothing but good things about the Poker games in Calgary, I did some scouting ahead of time and got directed to the Elbow River Casino. What with there being so much oil money flowing through Alberta I wasn't about to miss a Poker game.
We checked in and then got a cab. I got right into a 15/30 and BD went on the list. He'd been asking me for months about playing Limit, since he'd never play anything other than No-Limit. I told him that he wouldn't like it and he'd be bored almost instantly. He initially got on the board for the 15/30, but I talked him down to the 4/8 to minimize the impact if he caught a bleeder. After about 30 minutes of playing in the 4/8 he came over and with a smile said, "you were right, I'm going to play Craps." I kept grinding.
It was a pretty good game, only a few bumps and bruises along the way, but they knew their way around the table pretty well. I quit $350 winner and headed back to the hotel to catch some Z's.
The next day we had some great meetings. After work was through we met up with what will surely be our go-to partners in the city for dinner. We hit a nice steak house and had a great meal. We kept the entertainment running into the night, but then finally bailed to head back to Elbow River. BD insisted on showing me around the Craps table. I was pretty impressed with his acumen rolling the dice, and I never say that lightly being a compulsive person. We ended up catching a rush, but ended up cold and dropped a couple hundred between us. Overall fun, but I'd never play on my own.
1. It's a fun game, but BD did all the work.
2. There's lots of steady money at the Poker table.
I'm all about nice steady cash flow. We crashed and then made our way to the airport 11:40. I still had 3 green chips on me, so we had to swing by the casino to cash them in. I went to the first cage and they all kind of looked at me funny. "Excuse me?" I said. Then finally someone came over, "Oh, you want to redeem chips? You'll have to go over to that cage. I glance over, "so I can buy chips here, but I just can't change them at this cage?" "Yes," which sounded more like an uh, yes. I walked 20 feet to the other cage, more people milling around behind the cage ignoring me. "Excuse me?" I say again. They just sort of stare, then finally some guy comes over with a scowl on his face that read, what the hell do you want, I'm busy. "I just want to change these," I asked politely with a smile. "The cage doesn't open for another 15 minutes," he looked at me like I was retarded for wanting money for clay. I can understand that a bit. "So where do I..." then he cut me off. "Look the cage doesn't open until noon!" he raised his voice and gave me the duh, you ignorant fuck look. I raised my voice to keep his attention, "So where do I cash these in right now?" "Uh! I don't know, maybe in the Poker room?" he replied in complete annoyance. I walked to the Poker room and went to the cage, "any chance that I can cash these here?" "Sure!" says the polite and helpful attendant. "Wow, that was easy," I said with a smile as I left. Welcome to the Elbow River Casino, what the fuck do you want, asshole? Maybe it's the attitude when you're the only game in town.
Off to the airport and bags checked, we had a connection in Seattle before heading back to the Bay Area. My flight was 3 hours after landing since everything else was booked. I chilled in the Alaska Lounge and caught up on some emails and calls. When my flight time rolled around, it was delayed an hour and a half. 2 hours later I was finally boarding my flight home, where I'd finally get to crawl into my own bed and crash...until Sunday morning, when I'm off to the airport again for a week in Indy and Ohio for a working vacation. No rest for the wicked.
Nicholas has left the 3s