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Remember your first poker tournament? Or any sort of tournament? I do. I wrote about it.
July 17, 2007
Des Moines: DeeMoeen. D'moin.
Iowa: EyeOA. Eyeohwah. AyeOweEh.
West Des Moines to be more precise. I was there on the job…or more precisely
three consecutive jobs that would last almost three months. I would make an
occasional weekend trip home to Sacramento to show my driver’s license at our door and beg admittance. After
a couple of days though, the three beautiful ladies there (wife Julieann,
daughter Samantha and Goldy Molly) would tire of my manly habits and wave
goodbye sadly(happily) as I headed for the next plane.
West Des Moines is a shining example of modern suburbia. It
is a fairly large sized community full of good people that doesn’t seem to have a single building more
than twenty years old. It has a huge modern mall and, under construction, one of
those live, work, play integrated communities that looks like it is designed
for folks to walk everywhere. All in all, a very nice place filled with
terrific, hard working folks. It is a great snapshot of America as it seems it
should be.
That is not what this story is about though. It’s not about
my usual road warrior story either…what I had for dinner (although I know Bob
Bunker would prefer I go there).
It’s about gambling. That’s right. It’s the “C’mon dice! Daddy needs a new pair
of shoes!” kind of gambling. For the past year or so, when home and in hotel rooms I have been
cranking up the tube in the evening and dialing in whatever Texas hold’em poker
game happened to be on. Then, while that was playing I would fire up my Mac
laptop computer, kick in the Internet router connection and play the same game
on line for a couple of hours or so. I was learning the ins and outs and through thousands of games with free, play money.
If you have ever checked this out, you know I am one of hundreds of
thousands (millions) of folks who are doing the same damn thing.
I had also played a few live cash games of limit hold’em
during my Harley travels in Nevada, not really doing well along the way but
figuring I was learning something while having fun. Duh. It doesn’t take much
to make me happy sometimes.
Then…I found out there was a casino in the Des Moines area
that had poker tables. I would hit them once in a while when laying over on
weekends that I had to work. These guys
and ladies were all ages, 21 to 81, male, female, all races, everybody fits. My
typical plan was to hit a table with a $100 buy-in and a $3-6 or $4-8 dollar
limit game. I made the tables a half dozen times or so and the local good old
boys didn’t get too far into my knickers I am proud to say. I may have been
down a couple of hundred bucks total. Cheap
lessons and cheap thrills…I was a happy camper.
A week ago I headed to Prairie Meadows north of Des Moines
on a Thursday night for some reason. We
had shut down the project at a fairly normal hour and I was anxious to do
something. When I walked into the poker
room it was pretty full and I discovered they were just a couple of minutes
from beginning a $115 buy-in no-limit Texas hold-em tournament. I figured what
the hell; that is just a little more than I would plan to lose in one night so I might
as well buy in and learn something. Each player started with 2,500 in chips and
we were off! There were 90 entries so the last person would win
something over $3,000.
When I sat down I was pretty pumped but I felt pretty good
too so I just started playing as I ordinarily would…fairly patient, waiting for
cards, rarely bluffing, relying on all my earlier practice to know when I had a
good hand and when I didn’t.
I wish I could remember what cards I had the first time I ever went all
in. Damn that was cool, saying “all in” and shoving my pile of chips toward the
center of the table. I would do it three or four times over the course of the
evening and sometime in the third hour I was looking down at roughly 30,000 in
chips. I had successfully ridden through the periods of slow hands and the
periods of good hands. I was having such a good time I even called Julieann
during one of the breaks to tell her I was still in it. More cheap thrills
right?!
As we approached four hours, the blinds were something like
1,000-3,000 and we were suddenly at the final table! Ten of us and that meant
every one of us would finish in the money. With the high blinds it wasn’t long
before three guys were gone. I was dealt an Ace-nine unsuited…what they
call a “weak Ace”. I called the 3,000 big blind and most of the table folded
until this guy across from me raised another 3,000 or so. I figured it was time
for another so I said, “All in.” and felt a little adrenalin fueling things. I
probably had 20,000 at the time. The other guy called and we flipped the
cards. He had an Ace-eight unsuited
against me. I was thinking I had a pretty good chance, maybe 60-40 to win but
an eight hit on the flop and nothing helped on the turn or river so I was out
in seventh place. $280 bucks in my pocket and I was pumped. I was thinking if
my hand had held up I might have finished in the top 3-5. Wow!
The next Sunday they had a $50 buy-in and I was out mid-way
in a field of just over a hundred. Not too good and not too bad. I am not done
though. I want to try a few more! So
here’s the deal; saying “All in” and shoving a pile of chips toward the center
of a poker table is one damn fine experience. I highly recommend it. I will be
watching for chances to try this some more.
Your Friendly Road Warrior Correspondent,
