Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Really -- no sets?

I played a marathon poker session last Saturday at the nearest poker room -- the Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria, IL. I have played there enough to recognize some of the locals, but I generally keep to myself when there unless meeting up with Cokeboy99.

I was lured to the casino that day due to a slot promotion that I received (11x points from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.). Knowing that there are a couple of Willie Wonka slots there, how could I refuse? Plus, my wife had two things going on that day and wouldn't be around, thus giving me even more reason to go.

Fellow blogger Pete P. Peters loves to post pictures of his casino ventures, usually including the shot of his filet and/or cabernet from the fine steakhouse at whichever casino he is visiting. Well, I generally do not eat dinner when I play poker in East Peoria. I load up on a meal before I play, then don't eat until I am ready to head home. But, in the Triple P tradition, I hereby post pictures of my exquisite meal before driving to East Peoria:



Perhaps I should have just eaten some of the curry chicken I got my daughter at the local Chinese restaurant?

The poker that night was, to say the least, brutal. I caught some cards at the beginning (which included seeing the dreaded pocket kings and queens get pwned on the flop) and was able to chip up on a table that had players with weaknesses just ready to be exploited. Then ... nothing. I was card dead for hours. My cards were so bad that I couldn't even limp into any pots if I had the chance. Those chances became even more rare as a reg who I had usually seen play pretty tight went on tilt and started raising every pot. I estimate that I saw him rebuy to the tune of about $1,500 over a relatively short period of time. A couple of times he lost his rebuy within a few hands. Pretty sad. Sadder still, I was unable to take advantage of the situation. Fold. Fold. Fold. Yuck.

I decided to take a break from poker after over six hours so that I could earn some bonus points playing some sweet, sweet video poker and some slots. Unfortunately, the video poker machines in East Peoria seem incredibly tight. Nothing. Nada. How does Pete Peters find dem good machines that give him quad Aces so frequently?

After an hour of donking some slots and after the promotion ended, I went back to the poker room, only to be two-outed on a big hand and suffer other poker indignities that I shudder to remember. In both sessions, which totaled 12 hours, I did not hit even one set. I felt pretty confident against the other players, but the cards certainly did not cooperate that night.

You know you are running bad when you depend on slot play to make up for poker losses. I hit up Wonka for one last time before leaving the boat and got a nice bonus, which at least cut my losses to a level where I didn't tweet that I wanted to kill everybody.

I grabbed a shitty Italian sub from the snack bar and began the lonely drive home, making it into my bed before the sun came up. Just another frigging day in Par-A-Dice.

15 Comments:

Blogger Pete P. Peters said...

Lightning: if you want to mash dem machines like a champ, you need to fuel like a champ. Pizza and "pop" (you crazy Midwesterners) ain't gonna cut it, u see . . .

6:52 AM  
Blogger lightning36 said...

Ummm ... I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, where what I drank was called "soda." The city kids drank "pop." And I tend to eat at Subway or at home before making the journey to Par-A-Dice, but Little Caesars was right next to the Chinese restaurant and the pizza smell was sooo good.

7:05 AM  
Blogger Tony Bigcharles said...

i think what Pete does is just post photos of other peoples wins.

9:59 AM  
Blogger ~Coach said...

You forgot to attend a professional sporting event also Lightning... #amateur

10:19 AM  
Blogger angerisagift said...

it is mountian dew and taco bell DUH!!!! but i am boycotting mountian dew Bcuz of the baja blast situation. MELLO YELLO!!!!!! OCCUPY MOUNTIAN DEW!!!! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!!

11:06 AM  
Blogger Lucki Duck said...

I admire that you chose a diet drink to go along with your pizza. The difference between 1,600 calories and 1,750 is HUGE!

Well played sir.

11:22 AM  
Blogger Pete P. Peters said...

@ Tony . . . yeah; exactly right. I wander the casino, searching for machines showing other people's big hits . . . then I take pictures of the machine and repost on my blog . . . because, like, I'm desperate to impress you all with the shear amount of luck I have . . .

12:34 PM  
Blogger Pete P. Peters said...

PS @ Tony . . . and, sometimes, I get really lucky, like last Saturday . . .

I find three machines showing quad aces . . . each with escalating credit amounts . . .

The first (AAA7 for $200) shows credits of $200+ . . . T

The second (after hitting quad 4's w/kicker for $500) shows $600 or so in credits . . .

And then the third (quad 4's for $200 again) shows $800 in credits . . .

Then I post all three pictures as a series, claiming I hit them all . . . .

And, it's brilliant, because if you notice the escalating credits, you might actually believe that these were my wins (on the same ticket), when, in reality, it's just three random pictures of other people's wins that I found after spending all afternoon searching for machines still showing peoples' hits . . .

12:44 PM  
Blogger lightning36 said...

@ Lucki Duck: I had actually, for the most part, given up diet sodas, thinking they were probably worse for me than drinking the good old regular stuff. However, we were given a small supply of Diet Dr Pepper, and I certainly wasn't going to pass up a freebie!

@ Pete P. Peters: I knew your VP success was all a scam. I'll bet you are not even a real lawyer.

1:10 PM  
Blogger Memphis MOJO said...

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, where what I drank was called "soda." The city kids drank "pop."

Where I grew up (southern Illinois), we called them cokes. Didn't matter if they were pepsi, 7UP or Dr. Pepper, they were called cokes, lol.

1:52 PM  
Blogger Pete P. Peters said...

Well, I'm glad you're not a "pop" guy. As an east coast "gentlemen," for some reason I always cringe when I hear that term.

3:32 PM  
Blogger angerisagift said...

to borrow from coach's twitter page " diet soda tastes like i rather b fat" or something like that. also unless i see P3 in these pic of VP/VBJ with 2 forms of I.D. like a pornstar mayb STUpid UNGER is right. nah STUpid UNGER cant even figure out which is the freezer on a refrigerator. i am like FOX MULDER on the X-FILES i want to believe

3:57 PM  
Blogger Mr Subliminal said...

Sounds like a normal session to me.

6:13 PM  
Blogger Rob said...

My advice is, when you get the dreaded pocket Kings, immediately call Cokeboy and have him play them for you.

Question....does that casino offer free alcoholic beverages? I'm wondering if all non-NV casinos have the silly law that they can't serve free booze like CA does.

But at least I get free food at the Bike. But if I ate enough to offset my loses, I'd be up to 400 pounds in no time.

I've had sessions like that too, when you can't hit a set to save your life. It sucks.

I recommend hitting sits instead.

Pro tip.

8:48 PM  
Blogger ManInBlack said...

Wow that meal looks delicious

1:27 PM  

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