Atlantic City, Baby!

I wrote this very sleep deprived on the train ride back to WMass Sunday morning:

At about 2AM Friday morning I fell asleep. Three hours later, my mom woke me up to give me a ride to Springfield for the train to go to Philly to visit Owen. Owen is a friend from high school who goes to Penn. I taught him to play the pokah, and now he is a fellow degenerate.

I couldn’t really get too many ZZzz’s on the train because of the constant stop/starts, people coming on and off, and people behind me talking with what my kindergarten teacher would refer to as a “non-indoor voice.” Needless to say, I was pretty fucking tired when I got there.

I arrived in Philly at about 11. Owen and I headed back to his apartment, and I dropped off my bags off and O told me I am going to get a tour of Philly. Boy, did I get a tour! We were out for about four hours, walking around the city. I saw the Rocky steps, a bunch of historical places, and some other sites you wouldn’t expect degenerate gamblers like Owen and I to explore. He is very proud of his new city. And I don’t blame him. It’s a much underrated city IMHO, and even better now that Bloom isn’t there.

However, when he asked me If I wanted to go to a museum, I declined. It was time to gamble, bayyyyyyyby!! We took the train over to Atlantic City, talking about how much money we are expecting to make off the donks. When we get there, I was absolutely in awe. There are so many huge buildings, and compared to Turning Stone, it’s amazing. Owen, fresh off a Vegas trip, is a huge badass and starts talking about how tame AC feels compared to the Vegas strip.

We decide to go to the Tropicana casino. Owen is only 20, so he feels it necessary to dress up “like a balla” in order to not get carded. He is sporting a Bob Kraft-esque blue shirt with white collar and cuffs. He also tries to act extra casual and cool by referring to the employees of the casino by the names on their shirts. An example would be at the board in the poker room, where a young gentleman’s nametag read Kenny. Owen said something to the effect of, “Good evening, Kenny. I would like to get on the board for 2-5 No limit, please.”

I’ll spare you the poker details of the night with the exception of the following hand:

I get pocket aces and raise to 15 dollars. A guy behind me makes it 50. I raise to 150, and he then goes all in for 500 dollars. I call, and he shows his pocket Kings.

SHIP ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

OMG WAIT THERES A KING ON THE FLOP IM ABOUT TO LOSE A THOUSAND DOLLAR POT ON A TWO OUTER

I STAND UP WITH A “ZOMG WTF KILL ME NOW” LOOK ON MY FACE.

However, the flop had a jack also. The turn brought a queen. They were teasing me. However, the tease came through in the form of a ten on the river.

TEN

JACK

QUEEN

KING

ACE

YAAAAA NUT STRAIGHT SHIP A GRAND TO ME HOLLLLLLLA

I tipped the dealer 15 bucks, and that was possibly my most exciting hand I’ve ever played. It took me so long to stack the seemingly abundant red (5 dollar chips) that I had just receieved. I just did the math. It was 200 of them.

I finished up about 450 that night, and Owen won about 600. We went back to Philly at 430 AM, and slept from around 6am to 2pm Saturday.

We got up, and went back over to Atlantic City. On the train on the way over, this unbelievably drunk chick named Lisa sat with me and Owen. If any of you have seen that show on MTV that follows around those Northern Jersey girls, this is exactly what she looked/dressed/talked like. She was drinking a mixed drink out of a coke bottle, told us she had been drinking since 11am, and was on her way to a beer convention in AC. She reassured us that she ONLY does this on weekends because she’s a responsible person. I didn’t believe her.

When we arrived in AC, we parted ways with Lisa, and as I was leaving the train, I saw a guy wearing the greatest t-shirt ever. It read, “I’m not angry, I’m just from Philly,” I think I know just the person to get one for.

Upon arriving, we went to the Atlantic Ten basketball championships. Although UMass didn’t make it, I already had the tickets so we decided to go to the final game anyway. It was a really entertaining and close game, but George Washington pulled away at the end over URI. Congratulations and good luck to them in the NCAA tournament. (UMass would have destroyed them had they been healthy, but that’s another rant.)

After the game, we hit up the casinos again. I made another 3 hundred, leaving me up around 750 for the trip. I am now walking around with 16 100 dollar bills. I feel like Dub. People play really, really bad in AC, and it’s as if they are just trying to give their money away.

You do meet some interesting people at the tables. The guy at my table next to me this night was awesome for two reasons:

1. I made a huge bluff for $150, and this lady was thinking for a while about calling me. The guy blurts out: “I can tell he has pocket kings you should fold.” She folded her winning hand, saving me a lot of money.
2. He drank five red bulls while I was at the table. FIVE. I had three once this summer, and I was shaking. He owns me in the caffeine department.

We headed back to Philly in the morning (Owen again beat me by winning 500 that night) and now I am writing this on the train at 7am Sunday morning going back to Springfield. I am ridiculously sleep deprived, and am very, very excited at the prospect of getting home and sleeping for 12 hours +.

PS…I noticed I changed tense a lot in this. I’m too lazy to change it, and cut me some slack because I’m Nathan-level tired right now. SFT.

PPS…Does anyone want to go to Foxwoods next weekend?

---DB