Curse You, Ace-Queen!

Wednesday night I was playing in the weekly freeroll poker tourney at Bally's, hoping to be one of the final 20 players to cash for $300.

The event started promptly at 6 p.m. with 59 players, a larger than usual field for recent tourneys. I got off to a good start, taking down a few pots and building my stack from $5,000 to almost 12,000 when the 10-minute break came 100 minutes into play. By then the field had been whittled to 36 and I was in pretty good shape. I had the 3rd largest stack at the table and decided I would only play solid starting hands and try to steal the blinds when possible.

After the break, some of the short-stacked players began to fall out until there were 32, 30, 29 players left. I lost some valuable chips when I looked down and found A-Q of mixed suits in my hand. The blinds at this time were $1000 and 500. Several players folded, so I bet $3,000 thinking I could take down the blinds. But I barely got my chips in the pot when the guy to my left went all in for $10,000. I just couldn't risk all my chips, so I had to fold. The loss left me with about $9,500 left.

The very next hand I found myself with the very same starting hand, A-Q. Again several guys folded and I went ALL IN, expecting again to take down the $1,500 in blinds. But I got a quick call from a guy who had just a few more chips than I did. He showed K-K. The flop came 4-9-Ace! I had taken the lead on the flop. The turn card was a 2 and I was anticipating a nice stack of almost $20,000 when the flop came A KING!! The guy had two possible winning cards and he hit one on the river to knock me out of the tourney in 28th place. Frustrating...

Earlier in the day I won $125 in blackjack, so it wasn't a losing day, but I came soooo close to winning another 300 in the tourney.

While waiting for the tourney to begin, I enjoyed a pulled pork sandwich at the Nosh eatery and saw a heart-wrenching scene involving a Dad and his two young daughters. Dad was hustling across the casino floor pulling a suitcase behind him. His long legs were moving fast and the two girls, about 4 or 5 were desperately trying to keep up while pulling their own tiny Dora the Explorer suitcases. Dad was 10 feet, then 15 feet ahead of the girls moving quickly across the Ballys casino floor. The girls were crying out "Daddy, Wait" and "Daddy, Daddy." But he didn't seem to hear and was soon some 20 feet ahead of the girls in a busy casino. I wanted to slap the guy. Finally he stopped and looked back. He waited while the girls caught up, but seemed irritated that their little legs couldn't keep up. What a jerk!!

On Tuesday, Helen and I went to see "Hitzville," a Motown music show at Planet Hollywood. It was GREAT. A live 5-piece band and 7 talented singers played dozens of Motown songs from the '60s. It was great fun and brought back a lot of memories. During the show a video montage of the original Motown groups is shown on three screens. The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder and others were shown. At $45 a ticket, it's a huge bargain and I recommend it to anyone who loves Motown music.

Next Monday night, Scott comes to visit. It'll be good to see him and we're going to see "Million Dollar Quartet" with him the following day. Then next Wednesday our niece, Tricia and her husband Kevin come for a visit. They're staying at the Mirage and will be seeing "Love" the Beatles show. Should be fun seeing them!

And so our LV adventure continues...