777 - Jackpot!

7/7/07--what a day!

Woke up around 10:30am after playing Starcraft a bit too much the night before. I got in a round of FIFA, which was my previous post. DTran was originally planning on arriving in Tahoe around noon and playing basketball with me at Kahle for a few hours, then heading down to the casinos to play poker. He ended up getting a late start out of the Bay, so he didn't show up until almost 4pm.

I decided to go hit Kahle anyway, and I luckily found a spot with two wily veterans: half-court shooting Dave, and his partner in crime, Mike. Our fourth teammate was a scrappy young guy who owned the boards. We were potent. Dave, Mike and I were on fire from 3-point range--and when you have 3 players making over 50% of their 3-pointers, and an awesome rebounder, we pretty much hit a 3-pointer every time down the court. We won six games in a row before finally falling to another pretty stacked team of youngsters. For not playing basketball the last month, I was glad to find my shot still intact.

Basketball ended around 3pm, so I went home to shower, then headed down to Harvey's to meet up with DTran. They hit some bad traffic, apparently a burning car on the roadway (which is super-dangerous in the forest-fire prone Tahoe National Forest). I got to the casino before them, and still wasn't sure which game I wanted to play. I'd been debating between $2/$3 No Limit, and $3/$6 Limit. I have only played in the $2/$3 NL game once since moving to Tahoe, and I lost $200 in about 15 minutes, before eventually winning it all back over the next hour or two. For the most part, NL is a lot more fun and challenging to play--but I finally decided that if I played the $2/$3 NL game, I'd be playing with "scared money," which is no way to play no limit.

I got seated right away at $3/$6 Limit, and after watching a few hands, I was very glad with my decision to play Limit instead of No Limit. The table was a very friendly table, and the entire first orbit at the table, I don't think I saw a single pre-flop raise. Good table to be at! The table banter was also extremely light-hearted and funny. Players took their bad beats in stride, and poker karma was in full force. If someone took a few beats in a row, he'd get a big pot within the next orbit.

The table dynamic was almost perfect, and I'm glad I am finally able to recognize when I'm at a good table or when I should get up and find another. The table had four or five old, retired guys who played very tight. One old Asian guy who was willing to mix it up, but for the most part played tight. Two late-20's Filipino guys sat down at the table, and for the three hours I was at the table, it was pretty much the two Filipino guys making fun of the old guys (or each other), then the old guys firing right back at the young guys. I was in the middle of it all, jawing back and forth at everyone--but all in good humor, and there were lots of laughs.

About 30 minutes into the session, DTran arrived and he brought two friends, Jeremy and Hy-son (like Tyson with an H). The three of them all work at Google on the Gmail team. Jeremy is on a six-month work visa slash internship with Google, and he is originally from Paris, France. Hy-son is from Vietnam, and I didn't quite catch if he is on an internship, or if he is working permanent at Google. Needless to say, they had money to gamble with! I don't think I've ever really met any French people before, but Jeremy was pretty cool. Nice guy, funny, and had a a funny french accent to go with his humor. I resisted doing the annoying French laugh in front of him (hau hau hau), but it was difficult... very difficult.

The three of them took a while to get seated, and while they were waiting, I get really my only memorable hand from the evening:

Get dealt KcQd in the BB. Five limpers to me, and I check my option.

Flop comes AdJdTd. Flop the straight, and have a draw to the 2nd highest flush.

SB checks, I lead out for $3, and one of the two Filipino's directly behind me raises to $6. Rut Roh, he either probably has the Kd, or a made flush, or possibly a set is what I'm thinking. I don't really see him raising here with anything less. I'm not really sure what the two guys were thinking who cold-called the $6 bet to my right, but I decided to call as well, with all the money in the pot--and hoping for another diamond.

Turn comes 6h. SB and I check to the re-raiser, who bets out $6. One caller, SB folds, and I call, hoping for that last diamond. As the dealer burns the final card before the river, I think to myself:

"Diamond, Diamond, Diamond... man, I sure hope that guy doesn't have the Kd if another diamond hits... how cool would it be if the river is the Kd??? Royal Flush!"

Then...

BAM!!! King of Diamonds!!!

I lead out for $6, guy behind me re-raises. 3rd guy reluctantly folds, and I let off the other guy easy by just calling (I didn't want to be THAT much of a dick). I show the Qd and rake in a pretty big pot. Everyone starts hooting and hollering, and I got a jackpot worth $529 for hitting the Royal flush! Tipped the dealer nicely, and thought about swimming in the sea of red chips in front of me :)

7/7/07 the luckiest day ever? Royal flush jackpot says yes! That is the first Royal I've ever had, and after it happened, all I could think is how glad it didn't happen at the penny/two-penny tables on Pokerstars, where all I'd win is the $2 pot, and have no jackpot :)

I made a conscious effort to not loosen up with the $600 in front of me at a $3/$6 table, and I folded like a madman! I had a blast at the table chatting it up with all the old guys, who had plenty of stories to tell, and couldn't wait for someone to listen. I downed 4 Sierra Nevadas, and just had an all-around blast.

I checked in on DTran and friends periodically, and tried to make a "whoever makes the most money wins" bet with DTran, but he saw my Royal flush already. Damn! David was doing pretty well, and had a healthy $150 or so in front of him after buying in for $100.

Jeremy, on the other hand, wasn't doing so hot. His big hands weren't holding up, and he'd only win the blinds with Aces. His table eventually broke, and he ended up sitting directly to my left for about 20 minutes before he busted out and opted not to rebuy with his shitty luck. His bustout hand happened when he only had $5 left, and found As3s. He ended up flopping the nut flush, but an opponent found quads on the turn. Unlucky, but also very lucky that he didn't have anymore money to lose on the hand!

Hy-son apparently flopped a straight-flush on his table, for a $250 jackpot. He got up and left quickly thereafter, happy to win money his first time at a casino.

We finished up playing at about 6:30pm, and were ready for some dinner. David was last to get up from his table, so we bet on how much he won. I didn't get a very good look at his stack, but Jeremy said $40, and I went with $30. Hy-son picked $35. We all put a dollar on it, and Jeremy finally won something, when DTran came back and announced $47.

We headed to Sam's Place, and I chowed down a monster Calzone, and washed it down with a very large Hefeweizen. J had a burger, and DTran and Hy-son couldn't finish their monster calzones. Jeremy taunted David and said it was just three more bites. David had probably 1/3rd of his calzone left, and he bet Jeremy $5 that J couldn't eat it in 3 bites. He took three HUGE bites, and just barely made it. It took him a good 5 minutes to finally chew and swallow all of that last bite, and I don't think anyone else at the table could have done it.

Hy-son and I paid for Jeremy's meal, because we won the big jackpots, and he had shit-luck on the night (besides prop-bets!). After Sam's place, we headed to my place, then walked down to the beach. It was just after 8:30pm when we went down to the beach, and it was starting to get dark. That didn't stop us from bringing a disc and a football though, and we ended up playing 2v2 football on the sandy beach.

Me and Jeremy vs. DTran and Hy-son. The teams were made at Sam's place, when Jeremy had finished his burger and we agreed that the next person to finish their meal was on J's team for games tonight. First play from scrimmage, J tosses up a duck, DTran intercepts it and returns it for a Touchdown. Balls!

0-1, playing to 3. Next possession, we miss four passes in a row, and turn the ball over. I make them start from their goal line instead of ours (wily!), and I end up intercepting Hy-son and returning it for the equalizer.

1-1. Next possession, DTran lobs a nice pass to Hy-son for the score.

1-2. Jeremy and I work the ball down the field, and get a nice little slant to me for the score.

2-2. They start with the ball, and I suggest losers buy drinks for the drinking games tonight. David quickly agrees, because they have the ball. By this point, it was almost completely dark, and it was getting hard to see the ball--so I honestly didn't think they'd complete a pass.

Then comes the greatest play of sand-football ever at Zephyr Cove.

David is the QB, and sticks the ball out at the line of scrimmage and shouts, "Blue! 42! Green! 16! Hut...Hut... HIKE!"

And as soon as he says HIKE I snatch the ball from his out-stretched hand and run it in for the score!!!!!! We Win!!!!!

After a bit of rubbing it in, we head to Safeway and get a 12-pack of Sam Adams, 4-pack of Guinness for DTran and I, and a 6-pack of Fat Tire. We didn't really plan on drinking heavily, but I wanted to show them beer pong, and perhaps a drinking game or two.

We ended up playing beer pong with bottled Sam Adams Light. It was much better than our usual Natty-Ice at the house. Jeremy and I rocked the house against DTran and Hy-son. I was on fire, and on our first shot, Jeremy sunk his, and I bounced mine into the middle cup for a quick 3 drinks for DTran and Hyson. We got the balls back to shoot again because we both made em'. J missed his, but I sank mine for a 4-0 lead.

DTran and Hy-son missed their first six or so shots, and I ended up sinking my first 5. At one point in the game, we had them down to two cups, and we had all of ours still. Can you say, "Rout?!" By the end of the game, they ended up only hitting one of our cups, but both Jeremy and I air-balled shots on the single cup, so we had to each drink a cup for the air-ball. So technically, the DTran/Hyson combo had to drink 17 of the 20 cups--but I helped them out by drinking 3 of their 17.

Jeremy and I then lost to Hy-son and Cody, when Hyson caught fire at the end. He first sunk it in the same cup Cody sunk his in, to send us down from four cups to one--then he made his first shot at the solo cup, to ice the game. Losing at beer-pong gets me wasted fairly quickly, so shortly thereafter I hit the hay.

We woke up this morning around 10:30am, and walked down to the Zephyr Cove Resort, where half of the house used to work. I actually don't think anyone still works in the restaurant anymore, but at one point Jen, George and Cody all worked there. Jen's in Shasta now, George moved to work the jetski rentals, and Cody works at Push Fitness. The food was damn good, and David "I'm rich, bitch!" Tran picked up the bill, cause he's like that.

We headed down to the beach, and were just planning on checking out the scenery and tossing the frisbee and football--but we ended up getting hot and all jumped in the lake. It felt great after the burning sand on the feet! We got lots of tossing in, and played fliers up for a while. Can't wait to get back to Seattle and have people to toss with more often.

All in all, great weekend, and 7/7/07 delivered in a big way :)

Not sure what I'm going to do this afternoon, it is a toss-up between frisbee in Truckee, and chilling at the house for the afternoon. Leaning towards frisbee, but I'll give Lis a call and see if her and friends will be playing.