Change100 at PokerWorks

I’ve been to Red Rock Canyon National Park maybe half a dozen times this year. Yet I never get sick of it. Beauty like that can never wear on me. The boys were all up early on Friday morning and Senor wanted to get out of the casino and “touch the rocks.”

“They have incredible energy. And they tell stories.”

We piled into my silver rental Sebring and took the 13-mile scenic drive around the park with several stops so Senor could achieve maximum contact with the rocks. He and Pauly took a half-mile walk down a trail while Derek and I stayed in the car and smoked tough. My silver leather ballet flats weren’t exactly made for hiking.

Back at the casino, we headed into the sportsbook so the guys could place their bets for the day. After my good fortune with UCLA the night before, I decided to cash that ticket and let it ride on two more picks. I took Butler +10 vs. Florida and USC +8.5 vs North Carolina. Pauly was betting all dogs for the day and these were the two I felt the best about. By this point, after watching a serious amount of college basketball over the last week or so, I didn’t feel like a total idiot and thought that these games would be much closer than the oddsmakers did. So I laid a modest $55 to win $50 on each.

After watching the games for about half an hour, I couldn’t stand the suspense anymore and hopped into the $4-8 with 1/2 kill game next door in the poker room. The entire casino was filling up with rabid UNLV fans (they were about to play Oregon), all dressed in varying amounts of red. I could see the scores from my perch in the 6 seat, so I could keep an eye on the game while being distracted by the poker action.

God help me, I’m a full-fledged junkie.

The 1 seat was a dead ringer for Jeffrey Katzenberg. I asked him “hey, does anyone ever tell you that you look like Jeffrey Katzenberg?”

His reply? “Who’s Jeffrey Katzenberg?”

The 2s was a cross between Robert Evans and Bela Lugosi, while the 3s could have been the Poker Shrink’s super-grumpy older brother. A couple of jackpot-chasing old ladies and two uber-douchebags rounded out the table. I put uber-douche #1 on mega-tilt when I cracked his K-K with 9-T suited.

“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” he quipped as I stacked his chips.
“The admissions committee at Yale thought so” I retorted.

He didn’t say another word to me and left when his friend busted the rest of his rack 20 minutes later. Pauly came in and checked on me at one point. I saw a guy a couple of tables over do a double-take at Pauly as he exited the room. A Tao of Poker fan I’m sure.
Meanwhile, the games were heading into their last few minutes. UNLV had been down almost the whole second half without a prayer to cover the spread. Until the very last minute. Some dude hit a three bringing the score to within two. And though I had nothing on this game, Pauly had a lot. As the trey swished perfectly through the basket I threw my hands in the air and shouted in concert with the roar coming out of the UNLV-heavy sportsbook.

“OH MY GOD!!”

Only the poker room didn’t really shout along with me. My table looked at me like the crazed sports betting lunatic I was quickly becoming.

Of course, my reverie was temporary, as both UNLV and USC went on to completely blow it, setting Pauly back several grand and placing him firmly on tilt. I split my bets for the day when Florida won, but didn’t cover. I quit the poker game up about $100 as soon as the basketball games ended.

Pauly, JW, Friedman, Derek and I all adjourned to the Grand Cafe to drown our sorrows in greasy food. Pauly fumed as he ate his chicken sandwich and I mourned the loss of my appetite when my chicken fingers arrived. Senor had been missing in action for a couple of hours, having wandered off into the pits shortly before halftime. He finally found us in the cafe shortly after our food arrived. He was hammered on vodka and jacked up on about 10 Red Bulls. He sat down and ate Friedman’s fries, some of the chicken fingers, and what remained of the bread basket. When the waitress came around to check on us, Senor asked for a Red Bull. The waitress winced and told him that unfortunately, they were $5 each.

“Well, in that case I’ll have two!” he shouted drunkenly.

Senor described his adventures in the pit to us… well, at least what he could remember. First he tried the craps tables.

“I walked up there, put $100 on the field and then… FUCK!”

At some point he played roulette and lost. Then he headed for the blackjack tables where he made back “about 25% of my sportsbook losses.”

Noting the pallor on Pauly’s face, Senor shouted to anyone who could hear “Tomorrow is another day!!”

The next day we decided to watch the games in our room instead of the sportsbook. We had that amazing plasma TV, and such luxe surroundings– how could we let it go to waste? Miami Don and JW came up to join us and we spent the afternoon ripping bong hits and taking utrns live-blogging the action on the Tao of Poker. I didn’t make any bets that day, though I instantly regretted not continuing to let my action ride on UCLA after they whooped Kansas.

After the games were over, we joined Amy Calistri and the Poker Shrink for dinner at the Salt Lick BBQ. Amy is a dyed-in-the-wool Texan, so she knows her ‘cue. At her suggestion we got the all-you-can-eat family style platter of pork ribs, brisket, and sausages that came with sides of coleslaw, potato salad, beans, and mac & cheese. Seriously good grub. Afterwards, Amy, Shrink and I sat for an hour or so in the $4-8 Omaha hi-lo with 1/2 kill. Much to our surprise, we ran into Dr. Chako in the poker room. He was up at Red Rock for the week for a convention, along with about 400 other radiologists.

I had told myself before I even drove out to Vegas that I was going to head back to L.A. Saturday night. But as afternoon turned into evening, I kept pushing my departure back and back. I’ll leave at 5. At 8. After dinner. OK, I guess I’ll stay another night…

I finally left Las Vegas at 4:45 PM on Sunday, a full 24 hours longer than I had intended to. But with this company, can you blame me? My drive back to Los Angeles on Sunday night was one of the worst I had ever endured– over 6 1/2 hours compared to the normal 4. Baker to Barstow was a 30 MPH crawl. And an overturned RV at the top of the Cajon Pass left me parked, literally PARKED on the freeway for almost half an hour. People were getting out of their cars, yapping away on their cell phones and trying to figure out what was going on about 100 yards ahead of us, where a swarm of cop cars, fire trucks and ambulances descended on the wreckage.

But I’d do it again. And again and again just for the chance to spend more time with these guys. So many brilliant stories and laughs so hearty my sides ached and tears streamed from the corners of my eyes. I didn’t come away a massive cash winner from this trip, but far richer in joy and friendship.

And that’s the best expected value I could ever ask for.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.