Sunday, February 8, 2009

Flying Seattle visit

I seized an opportunity for a quick trek down to Seattle this weekend to see some old friends. Not so coincidentally this was also the weekend that several Seattle-area poker bloggers had chosen to hold a home game, so I crashed the party.

Saturday did not have an auspicious beginning. I endured a ridiculous 90-minute wait at the Peace Arch border crossing. This delay pushed back my Seattle arrival to 1pm, and caused me to miss the first of my planned rendez-vous. I can't blame my friend Wolfgang, he was being a responsible parent to his young daughter and nap-time is inviolate for any sane father having to pull solitary child-care duties.

So, I shifted gears and parked down near Pioneer Square to take a walk, eventually ending up at a favourite bookstore -- Eliott Bay Book Co. and happily browsed the shelves and after making some purchases, I ducked downstairs to the cafe and snarfed down some good soup as I waited for the arrival of Zeem. He was a bit late and I found out that a humourless traffic cop had ticketed my car during its 12-minute window of vulnerability. Of course, I discovered the bad news AFTER I had purchased another two hours' worth of parking.

Undeterred and unwilling to have my good mood spoilt, I rode shotgun as Zeem took me over to a nearby bar, Shorty's, where I embarassed myself with an abysmal performance in its pinball arcade. The games were in generally good working order but I felt a bit curtailed by the lack of adequate lighting in the room.

Then, we proceeded along to the evening festivities, a blogger home game with a few luminaries of the Seattle poker landscape. I was the proud Gigli of the 8-player NLHE tourney where the host slaughtered me in an early pot where I flopped a 9-high club flush and raised Doc's opening bet (he had a mere two pair). Chris, the gracious host who had made sure I had copious amounts of Guinness in my system at all times, came over the top. Zeem folded what he later showed was the queen-high flush, and I announced that I wasn't good enough to fold my 1-out redraw to a straight flush and promptly got busted by a king-high flush. Yes, three of us had flopped a made club flush. It's always crubs, as CK would say. Always!

However, this proved to be a blessing in disguise because it left me with my hands free to devour food and drink without constraint. It's rare that I go bananas over tapas, but The Wife makes a mean guacomole which I could not get enough of. I doubt Astin could match it. I am willing to judge that competition and adjudicate any and all prop bets on this. I washed it down with yet more Guinness and a couple of glasses of a fine shiraz I'd had before and was happy to sample again. The Doc knows how to live well!

I was allowed to choose the format of the second tournament. It went on a little long, but I redeemed myself by winning the HOOSE event we put on (double Omaha in place of Razz). I think I won something like 22 of the 24 Stud08 hands that were dealt? It was pretty sick.

We capped the late night with a dealer's choice cash game and most of the bloggers enjoyed my pick of Crazy Pineapple for an orbit of play -- and I proved how to go broke with AAx. Later I also demonstrated my poor judgment in not folding the flopped nut straight in a hand of Omaha, and got stacked when a gutterball draw got there on the turn. But I ground back up close to even by the time the game broke.

The party ended about 2:30AM as some of the bloggers made grandiose claims of needing to do healthy exercise activities early on Sunday. I think this was merely an excuse to avoid giving me any action on my Wii Golf challenge even though I promised to play wrong-handed.

I then took advantage of Chris' offer of a spare bed, snatched a few hours' sleep, and drove home late Sunday morning after seeing a few other old Seattle-based friends for a quick chat and a late-morning cup of coffee.

It was a fun whirlwind of a trip.

NB. Rough count of gibes at token Canuck: 19
Rough count of phone calls made by Doc & Wife to other Canadian poker bloggers to mock my Gigli performance: 2

11 comments:

Memphis MOJO said...

Sounds like a fun trip. Thanks for the report.

OhCaptain said...

Ditto what Mojo said. I'm a bit jealous now :)

Matt said...

Good playing with you. You definitely rolled over the table in both Stud games. It certainly didn't help that they were back to back.

Matt

The NL Wife said...

I believe my call to Canada was not specifically to mock your flaming Gigli bust out in #1.

Glad you liked the Gauc . . . its always served in our house!

I'll even make it for a Vancouver trip, if you'd like.

Shrike said...

Please don't spoil my self-important delusions.

BamBam said...

I was quite upset that I missed that call. No matter why it was being made.

:)

DrChako said...

Had an absolute blast, even if I only remember 1/2 of it. Next time in BC!

-DrC

kurokitty said...

That's awesome. I miss Seattle so much.

lightning36 said...

"The Wife makes a mean guacomole ..."

"I washed it down with yet more Guinness and a couple of glasses of a fine shiraz ..."

Quite a combination brewing in the ol' gizzard.

Shrike said...

I was careful to have a veggie platter buffer ... -)

NewinNov said...

Cool trip report. I'm originally from Olympia, WA. Glad to read about bloggers in the great Northwest. Found your link from a HOP post.