04-24-2002, 05:23 AM
My wife Lita, and I arrive in Las Vegas at about 7:15 on Thursday morning. I call our friends Bill and Lois as we are walking to the most inefficient baggage claim area outside of the third world. Bill tells me that he will meet us at the curb in about a half an hour.
About 45minutes later, as I am standing with a couple of hundred impatient Minnesotans at the baggage carousel, somebody grabs me around the neck from behind, and I escape to see Bill standing there smiling, “I knew I should have said meet you in an hour”.
Eventually, we collect our baggage and head off into a beautiful LV morning. We drop Lita at Bill and Lois’ Condo for some power napping. She had a late shift last night, and didn’t really get much sleep before our early morning flight. Bill, Lois and I head over to Angel Park to play the mountain course.
I take a few warmup swings on the range, and hit the ball solidly, high, and with a little draw. Hmmm, don’t seem to have picked up any bad habits by not practicing through the winter. I try some chip shots and short pitches, and just like every other spring, I can’t seem to hit any shots between 15 and 60 yards. That’s not so good. We go over to the practice green, and I roll the ball pretty well, so I go off to the side and work on chipping some more. I guess I know what the first lesson this spring has to be.
On the first hole, my drive ends up in the fairway bunker, I pick my approach a little too clean and send it over the green. I chip on and make bogey, that’s not such a bad start.
On the second hole, I pull my drive into the little row of trees on the left side, but get a lucky lie where I have a swing, punch an eight iron up to where I can hit an approach shot, and hit a gap wedge to about 30 feet. Ken, who was matched up with us by the starter had about a 60 foot putt, and he rolled it right over my ball marker, so I got a good look at the line and the speed. I roll my putt in for Birdie. YAY!
Mix in several blunders, and a weak short game, and I finished with a 92. Ok for the first round of the year, but I did enough good stuff so that I won 8 skins. We go back to Bill and Lois’ condo, for a shower and quick nap. Then we go to Outback for dinner. I figure that the early morning flight, a day in the sun, beer, and poker are going to be a bad mix, so I pass on the foster’s.
After dinner, we head down to the Mirage, where Lita says, ‘I know how the cards there go’, so she thinks her ‘TEE-ory’ will help her win at blackjack there. I check out the 6-12 holdem game, and it seems that seats 1,2, and 4 are limping in nearly every hand. I sign up for the 6-12 game, and take a seat playing 3-6. For the next hour and a half, I muck and blind my through about $40, while winning a couple of small pots.
They finally start a second 6-12 game, a must move game supporting the other game. I sit down, and there are two Minnesota guys there, one I just recognize, and PJ, a dealer who plays up to 15-30. He says, ‘I leave Minnesota to get away from guys like you, and here you are in my game in Las Vegas.’ This game is pretty tight with most pots being decided either preflop or on the flop. After about 15 minutes, I hold 77 in middle position and open raise. That convinced four more players to enter the pot. I flopped middle set, and this time it took until the river before the hand was decided. The next hand I was called to the main game.
I got the 10 seat, so I was acting in front of the loose players. The player in seat 4 had been replaced by a tighter player from the must move game that was familiar to a lot of the players at the table. That made the table a little bit tighter than it had been when I was watching earlier. I won two hands when I had flopped top pair on a twotone board and was raised by seat four. Both times I called the flop raise, and led the turn, and I won medium sized pots. Thanks clarkmeister for your discussion of that situation last week. Eventually the guy in seat four was called to the 10-20 game, and I took his seat to be behind the loose players. About midnight, they both busted out, and the two 6-12 games were combined. The game got a lot tighter again, and I figured it was time to get a little sleep.
I went and found Lita, and she and the Blackjack table she was playing on were having a lot of fun, she wanted to play some more, so I went to Binion’s to register for the Casino Employees event in the WSOP. If you don’t like lines, the night before registration is a lot less painful, than it is on the morning of the event. Then I returned to the Mirage and found Lita again. It hadn’t been a good night for the Tee-ory, but she had made a couple of friends and had some fun.
Friday.
We wake up, and head downtown about 10:30 and I leave Lita at the Cal, and head over to Binion’s. I check and the brush doesn’t know Dave C., and I can’t find a tall guy in an Illinois cap. There is a seat in a 6-12 game, so I take that too warm up. At 11:50, I am ahead $15 and it is time to go upstairs.
The first hour, I have AK, AQ suited, and AJ suited several times, and hit a lot of flops. I move up to about 950. I am thinking that it would be nice to have a 15 BB run when the blinds are 50-100 instead of 10-15, because that might get me in the money. During the second hour, I hold no hands, and at the break I have about 500.
I’ve haven’t got the best seat, because I have two loose aggressive players too my right, and the players too my left seem to call an awful lot, especially in the blinds, so when I have to decide to play, its frequently facing a raise, and I know I will have to make hands to win the pots. I get blinded down, go all-in, and win about 6 times before I finally go out with 9 tables left. But I was happy with my performance, in a situation that wasn’t ideal.
I go downstairs, and check with the brush again, still no Dave C.
I call Bill, and he tells me that Lita has a comp for the buffet at the Golden Nugget, and that they are coming down for dinner. I tell them that I will be playing poker somewhere on the first floor, and to come and find me.
I go and check the low limit lists, and both 4-8 and 6-12 have long lists, but the brush is trying to fill a 4-8 Omaha eight or better game, so I take a seat there while I am waiting for Bill. I post in the big blind on a kill hand, and get AQQ3 with a suited Ace. It goes two bets six ways preflop, and the flop is Qc, Jc, 9s. I bet and get raised. The turn is a blank, and the raiser bets again. The river is another 9, I check, the better checks, another player bets out, and I checkraise and get called twice. Queens full is good.
A couple of hands later, Bill comes in, and I tell him that I will play until the blinds come around. UTG I have 652A with the ace being suited. Two sixes come on the flop, and a third one appears on the turn. I win a medium sized pot, rack my chips and leave up $150 after 1 lap. Maybe I’ll play a little more Omaha in the future. ;o)
We go over to the Golden Nugget, and Lita is at a Blackjack table with four women who have never played blackjack and she is teaching them her Tee-ory, and they are running over the table. It sounds like a bunch of Texans at a hot craps table – or not quite, but they are noisy. We eat at the buffet, and Friday night is seafood night. For $11.95 it seems like a good value, and since it was comped, even better.
After dinner, I return to Binion’s, and put my name on the lists for 4-8 and 6-12. I get called for the 4-8 game, and sit down next to Pete, another Minnesota guy. He tells me that PJ came in tied for 27th in the tournament, after he made a mistake by playing a hand two hands before his big blind which ate up some of his chips so that he had to go all-in on his big blind.
The 4-8 game is a good game, with two maniacs from Montana and two calling stations and 5 reasonable players. I win a couple of hands early and get ahead, but then go through a long stretch of playing almost no hands, because its is frequently 2 or 3 bets to me, depending on what the Montana guys do and I am not even getting hands that I would usually limp with. I get a couple of hands late, and scramble back to even about the time the maniacs have to leave.
Then we get two surly players who got stomped in the 15-30 game, one of them is always pounding the table whenever something that he doesn’t like happens. Most of his starting cards fall in that category, and nearly every flop does too. A loud, obnoxious, foulmouthed drunk also joins the game. The game gets tense, with a couple of calls to the floor to settle everybody down. After about 12 hours of poker, I really don’t have the energy for this, and decide to call it a night. While I am at the cage, cashing out, the floor is called over again, and he gives everybody a last warning about their behavior. I think that it was a little too late to be doing that.
I go back over to the Golden Nugget, and Lita’s Tee-ory is working, and everybody sitting on her table says that she has to stay. So I watch while she wins about $300 more, and then we go home when the dealer goes on break.
Saturday
One of the treats that we give ourselves in Vegas is going to the massage school in the Green Valley area. We go there, and Lita gets a 2 hour massage, and I get an hour massage which feels really good, after sitting in a poker chair for 12 hours the previous day. In the afternoon, we visit my aunt, uncle and cousin, and ‘talk story’, about all the family and discuss the family reunion coming up in august.
Afterwards, Lita and I go back to the Golden Nugget, where she has another comp, and after dinner I head down to the Bellagio. By the time I get there, the room is packed, and I put my name on the 4-8 and 8-16 lists. I sweat Bill’s 8-16 game, and it is a fairly tight game with a lot of regulars. I hope I get called for the other 8-16 game. I am on the list a long time, and am a little eager to play, so that when the 1-5 stud list gets empty, I take a seat in one of those games. This game is really passive, and while I am sitting there, another Minnesota guy who usually plays 30-60 comes by with a rack of $20 dollar chips, and asks me what I am doing in a 1-5 STUD game. I tell him that I am waiting on the loooong holdem lists. I think that event, and my violating the protocol of the 1-5 game by being a ‘little’ more aggressive than the average 1-5 player made them uncomfortable with me at the table. I’m pretty certain that they were all happy when I got called to the 8-16 game.
It is the other game, and I hope it is a little looser than the one I was watching. My first hand, I post behind the button, and hold K8 suited. Two players limp in I check, and the big blind raises. We all call. The flop is KT8 rainbow. The Big blind bets, fold, fold, and since it is heads up, I call intending on raising the turn. The turn is a 2, he checks, I bet, he calls. River a Jack, he checks, I bet, and he calls. My hand is good. That is the last hand that is shown down for about 20 minutes with every pot headsup or settled preflop. I’m stealing my share of blinds, but I am thinking that this seems like a tough game to beat.
Bill comes by and asks me how I am doing, and I say, ‘good, so far’.
He says, ‘You should be, this is a good game.’ I think that if this is a good game, I know I can’t handle a tough one. The next time I muck, and there is action on the flop, I go over to his table and ask him why he thought I was in a good game and he tells me that it was because he didn’t look close enough before he spoke, and that nearly everybody in the game were regular players who played reasonably well.
UTG raises, the only identifiable weak player, besides potentially me, calls two cold and it is mucked to me in the big blind. I have Pocket Aces for the first time in about twenty-five hours of Las Vegas poker. I three bet, and both players call. The flop is J54 rainbow, about as good a flop as I can get. I bet UTG calls, and MP mucks. Turn, 8 of hearts, putting two hearts on the board. I bet, UTG calls. River 3 of Hearts. I check, UTG bets, I call and he shows me AQ of hearts, and I muck facedown. That turns out to be the only time I hold pocket Aces all weekend.
After that hand, a player who was 3UTG on that hand tells UTG that he didn’t have enough outs to call the flop, because if a Queen came on the turn he would be drawing slim, and if an Ace came, He would be drawing dead. When he asks him what he meant, he says, that he was sure that I had aces. I think that he had to put us both on our hands before he saw the AQ of hearts to get it right so quick.
I get called for the 4-8 game, and decide to end my 8-16 adventure with a small win. I play for a couple of hours in the 4-8 game, where nearly every flop is contested four ways, and only a couple of players raise preflop without big big big hands. This is a game that I can beat. I catch some flops, and get paid nicely, and when its time to go back to the Golden Nugget and pick up Lita, I am ahead another $150.
But, Lois’ car won’t start, and I call Bill to come and rescue me, and try and call Lita to tell her that we will be late, but I guess a cell phone ringing probably just sounds like another slot machine going off in the casino. We arrive at the Golden Nugget about an hour and a half after I said that I would be back. Lita is mad, because we are late, and it wasn’t a good night for her Tee-ory. She lost back a good portion of her win from the night before, especially in the time since I was supposed to pick her up. We explain the problem with the car, but she is still not happy.
Sunday
Bill, Lois and I go and play the Sun Mountain course at Paiute. It’s a nice course, the staff there does everything right, and the weather is perfect, which is important at Paiute, because when it is windy, it is really windy out there. The greens on the course aren’t in perfect shape, with a lot of dry spots and little bumps.
My full swings are clicking, and I’m rolling my putts well, but my short game is abysmal. I get several pars when I hit the greens, and lots of big numbers when I don’t, and shoot in the low 90s again. But, I make routine pars on six straight holes with three legitimate birdie chances. We hear that Minnesota got 4-6 inches of snow today, and if I’m hitting my full swings and putts well, while it is snowing in Minnesota, there has to be a little hope for my game this year.
After golf, we go home, and Lita is tanning and in a better mood. She is especially happy that the car broke down while I had it, instead of while she had it, which was the original plan for today.
We shower, pack, and stop at the noodle shop on spring mountain on the way to the airport so we can have a picnic while we are waiting for our flight. Lita orders enough to feed at least four, and we go off to the airport. Because of the snow in Minnesota, our flight is late, and it’s a good thing we have too much food. (Can you really have too much good Chinese food?) We are going to be back in Minnesota very late, and Chinese leftovers taste a lot better on the plane then the mini-pretzels that everyone else gets.
About 45minutes later, as I am standing with a couple of hundred impatient Minnesotans at the baggage carousel, somebody grabs me around the neck from behind, and I escape to see Bill standing there smiling, “I knew I should have said meet you in an hour”.
Eventually, we collect our baggage and head off into a beautiful LV morning. We drop Lita at Bill and Lois’ Condo for some power napping. She had a late shift last night, and didn’t really get much sleep before our early morning flight. Bill, Lois and I head over to Angel Park to play the mountain course.
I take a few warmup swings on the range, and hit the ball solidly, high, and with a little draw. Hmmm, don’t seem to have picked up any bad habits by not practicing through the winter. I try some chip shots and short pitches, and just like every other spring, I can’t seem to hit any shots between 15 and 60 yards. That’s not so good. We go over to the practice green, and I roll the ball pretty well, so I go off to the side and work on chipping some more. I guess I know what the first lesson this spring has to be.
On the first hole, my drive ends up in the fairway bunker, I pick my approach a little too clean and send it over the green. I chip on and make bogey, that’s not such a bad start.
On the second hole, I pull my drive into the little row of trees on the left side, but get a lucky lie where I have a swing, punch an eight iron up to where I can hit an approach shot, and hit a gap wedge to about 30 feet. Ken, who was matched up with us by the starter had about a 60 foot putt, and he rolled it right over my ball marker, so I got a good look at the line and the speed. I roll my putt in for Birdie. YAY!
Mix in several blunders, and a weak short game, and I finished with a 92. Ok for the first round of the year, but I did enough good stuff so that I won 8 skins. We go back to Bill and Lois’ condo, for a shower and quick nap. Then we go to Outback for dinner. I figure that the early morning flight, a day in the sun, beer, and poker are going to be a bad mix, so I pass on the foster’s.
After dinner, we head down to the Mirage, where Lita says, ‘I know how the cards there go’, so she thinks her ‘TEE-ory’ will help her win at blackjack there. I check out the 6-12 holdem game, and it seems that seats 1,2, and 4 are limping in nearly every hand. I sign up for the 6-12 game, and take a seat playing 3-6. For the next hour and a half, I muck and blind my through about $40, while winning a couple of small pots.
They finally start a second 6-12 game, a must move game supporting the other game. I sit down, and there are two Minnesota guys there, one I just recognize, and PJ, a dealer who plays up to 15-30. He says, ‘I leave Minnesota to get away from guys like you, and here you are in my game in Las Vegas.’ This game is pretty tight with most pots being decided either preflop or on the flop. After about 15 minutes, I hold 77 in middle position and open raise. That convinced four more players to enter the pot. I flopped middle set, and this time it took until the river before the hand was decided. The next hand I was called to the main game.
I got the 10 seat, so I was acting in front of the loose players. The player in seat 4 had been replaced by a tighter player from the must move game that was familiar to a lot of the players at the table. That made the table a little bit tighter than it had been when I was watching earlier. I won two hands when I had flopped top pair on a twotone board and was raised by seat four. Both times I called the flop raise, and led the turn, and I won medium sized pots. Thanks clarkmeister for your discussion of that situation last week. Eventually the guy in seat four was called to the 10-20 game, and I took his seat to be behind the loose players. About midnight, they both busted out, and the two 6-12 games were combined. The game got a lot tighter again, and I figured it was time to get a little sleep.
I went and found Lita, and she and the Blackjack table she was playing on were having a lot of fun, she wanted to play some more, so I went to Binion’s to register for the Casino Employees event in the WSOP. If you don’t like lines, the night before registration is a lot less painful, than it is on the morning of the event. Then I returned to the Mirage and found Lita again. It hadn’t been a good night for the Tee-ory, but she had made a couple of friends and had some fun.
Friday.
We wake up, and head downtown about 10:30 and I leave Lita at the Cal, and head over to Binion’s. I check and the brush doesn’t know Dave C., and I can’t find a tall guy in an Illinois cap. There is a seat in a 6-12 game, so I take that too warm up. At 11:50, I am ahead $15 and it is time to go upstairs.
The first hour, I have AK, AQ suited, and AJ suited several times, and hit a lot of flops. I move up to about 950. I am thinking that it would be nice to have a 15 BB run when the blinds are 50-100 instead of 10-15, because that might get me in the money. During the second hour, I hold no hands, and at the break I have about 500.
I’ve haven’t got the best seat, because I have two loose aggressive players too my right, and the players too my left seem to call an awful lot, especially in the blinds, so when I have to decide to play, its frequently facing a raise, and I know I will have to make hands to win the pots. I get blinded down, go all-in, and win about 6 times before I finally go out with 9 tables left. But I was happy with my performance, in a situation that wasn’t ideal.
I go downstairs, and check with the brush again, still no Dave C.
I call Bill, and he tells me that Lita has a comp for the buffet at the Golden Nugget, and that they are coming down for dinner. I tell them that I will be playing poker somewhere on the first floor, and to come and find me.
I go and check the low limit lists, and both 4-8 and 6-12 have long lists, but the brush is trying to fill a 4-8 Omaha eight or better game, so I take a seat there while I am waiting for Bill. I post in the big blind on a kill hand, and get AQQ3 with a suited Ace. It goes two bets six ways preflop, and the flop is Qc, Jc, 9s. I bet and get raised. The turn is a blank, and the raiser bets again. The river is another 9, I check, the better checks, another player bets out, and I checkraise and get called twice. Queens full is good.
A couple of hands later, Bill comes in, and I tell him that I will play until the blinds come around. UTG I have 652A with the ace being suited. Two sixes come on the flop, and a third one appears on the turn. I win a medium sized pot, rack my chips and leave up $150 after 1 lap. Maybe I’ll play a little more Omaha in the future. ;o)
We go over to the Golden Nugget, and Lita is at a Blackjack table with four women who have never played blackjack and she is teaching them her Tee-ory, and they are running over the table. It sounds like a bunch of Texans at a hot craps table – or not quite, but they are noisy. We eat at the buffet, and Friday night is seafood night. For $11.95 it seems like a good value, and since it was comped, even better.
After dinner, I return to Binion’s, and put my name on the lists for 4-8 and 6-12. I get called for the 4-8 game, and sit down next to Pete, another Minnesota guy. He tells me that PJ came in tied for 27th in the tournament, after he made a mistake by playing a hand two hands before his big blind which ate up some of his chips so that he had to go all-in on his big blind.
The 4-8 game is a good game, with two maniacs from Montana and two calling stations and 5 reasonable players. I win a couple of hands early and get ahead, but then go through a long stretch of playing almost no hands, because its is frequently 2 or 3 bets to me, depending on what the Montana guys do and I am not even getting hands that I would usually limp with. I get a couple of hands late, and scramble back to even about the time the maniacs have to leave.
Then we get two surly players who got stomped in the 15-30 game, one of them is always pounding the table whenever something that he doesn’t like happens. Most of his starting cards fall in that category, and nearly every flop does too. A loud, obnoxious, foulmouthed drunk also joins the game. The game gets tense, with a couple of calls to the floor to settle everybody down. After about 12 hours of poker, I really don’t have the energy for this, and decide to call it a night. While I am at the cage, cashing out, the floor is called over again, and he gives everybody a last warning about their behavior. I think that it was a little too late to be doing that.
I go back over to the Golden Nugget, and Lita’s Tee-ory is working, and everybody sitting on her table says that she has to stay. So I watch while she wins about $300 more, and then we go home when the dealer goes on break.
Saturday
One of the treats that we give ourselves in Vegas is going to the massage school in the Green Valley area. We go there, and Lita gets a 2 hour massage, and I get an hour massage which feels really good, after sitting in a poker chair for 12 hours the previous day. In the afternoon, we visit my aunt, uncle and cousin, and ‘talk story’, about all the family and discuss the family reunion coming up in august.
Afterwards, Lita and I go back to the Golden Nugget, where she has another comp, and after dinner I head down to the Bellagio. By the time I get there, the room is packed, and I put my name on the 4-8 and 8-16 lists. I sweat Bill’s 8-16 game, and it is a fairly tight game with a lot of regulars. I hope I get called for the other 8-16 game. I am on the list a long time, and am a little eager to play, so that when the 1-5 stud list gets empty, I take a seat in one of those games. This game is really passive, and while I am sitting there, another Minnesota guy who usually plays 30-60 comes by with a rack of $20 dollar chips, and asks me what I am doing in a 1-5 STUD game. I tell him that I am waiting on the loooong holdem lists. I think that event, and my violating the protocol of the 1-5 game by being a ‘little’ more aggressive than the average 1-5 player made them uncomfortable with me at the table. I’m pretty certain that they were all happy when I got called to the 8-16 game.
It is the other game, and I hope it is a little looser than the one I was watching. My first hand, I post behind the button, and hold K8 suited. Two players limp in I check, and the big blind raises. We all call. The flop is KT8 rainbow. The Big blind bets, fold, fold, and since it is heads up, I call intending on raising the turn. The turn is a 2, he checks, I bet, he calls. River a Jack, he checks, I bet, and he calls. My hand is good. That is the last hand that is shown down for about 20 minutes with every pot headsup or settled preflop. I’m stealing my share of blinds, but I am thinking that this seems like a tough game to beat.
Bill comes by and asks me how I am doing, and I say, ‘good, so far’.
He says, ‘You should be, this is a good game.’ I think that if this is a good game, I know I can’t handle a tough one. The next time I muck, and there is action on the flop, I go over to his table and ask him why he thought I was in a good game and he tells me that it was because he didn’t look close enough before he spoke, and that nearly everybody in the game were regular players who played reasonably well.
UTG raises, the only identifiable weak player, besides potentially me, calls two cold and it is mucked to me in the big blind. I have Pocket Aces for the first time in about twenty-five hours of Las Vegas poker. I three bet, and both players call. The flop is J54 rainbow, about as good a flop as I can get. I bet UTG calls, and MP mucks. Turn, 8 of hearts, putting two hearts on the board. I bet, UTG calls. River 3 of Hearts. I check, UTG bets, I call and he shows me AQ of hearts, and I muck facedown. That turns out to be the only time I hold pocket Aces all weekend.
After that hand, a player who was 3UTG on that hand tells UTG that he didn’t have enough outs to call the flop, because if a Queen came on the turn he would be drawing slim, and if an Ace came, He would be drawing dead. When he asks him what he meant, he says, that he was sure that I had aces. I think that he had to put us both on our hands before he saw the AQ of hearts to get it right so quick.
I get called for the 4-8 game, and decide to end my 8-16 adventure with a small win. I play for a couple of hours in the 4-8 game, where nearly every flop is contested four ways, and only a couple of players raise preflop without big big big hands. This is a game that I can beat. I catch some flops, and get paid nicely, and when its time to go back to the Golden Nugget and pick up Lita, I am ahead another $150.
But, Lois’ car won’t start, and I call Bill to come and rescue me, and try and call Lita to tell her that we will be late, but I guess a cell phone ringing probably just sounds like another slot machine going off in the casino. We arrive at the Golden Nugget about an hour and a half after I said that I would be back. Lita is mad, because we are late, and it wasn’t a good night for her Tee-ory. She lost back a good portion of her win from the night before, especially in the time since I was supposed to pick her up. We explain the problem with the car, but she is still not happy.
Sunday
Bill, Lois and I go and play the Sun Mountain course at Paiute. It’s a nice course, the staff there does everything right, and the weather is perfect, which is important at Paiute, because when it is windy, it is really windy out there. The greens on the course aren’t in perfect shape, with a lot of dry spots and little bumps.
My full swings are clicking, and I’m rolling my putts well, but my short game is abysmal. I get several pars when I hit the greens, and lots of big numbers when I don’t, and shoot in the low 90s again. But, I make routine pars on six straight holes with three legitimate birdie chances. We hear that Minnesota got 4-6 inches of snow today, and if I’m hitting my full swings and putts well, while it is snowing in Minnesota, there has to be a little hope for my game this year.
After golf, we go home, and Lita is tanning and in a better mood. She is especially happy that the car broke down while I had it, instead of while she had it, which was the original plan for today.
We shower, pack, and stop at the noodle shop on spring mountain on the way to the airport so we can have a picnic while we are waiting for our flight. Lita orders enough to feed at least four, and we go off to the airport. Because of the snow in Minnesota, our flight is late, and it’s a good thing we have too much food. (Can you really have too much good Chinese food?) We are going to be back in Minnesota very late, and Chinese leftovers taste a lot better on the plane then the mini-pretzels that everyone else gets.