Minnesota Carnage: 12/22 at the 'Bury (LONG)

[gonores]

This was too good of a time to keep the reports in the pre-trip thread. It deserves a thread of its own.

I may miss a lot of stories here…I’m hoping everyone else chips in to recover some of the stories that came out of last night.

I show up to Canterbury around 3 with Schneids, who assisted me in my effort to get wasted by driving me from the hotel a whole quarter-mile away. We arrive to find bicyclekick sucking it up in the 30/60 game and drinking a Corona. This pleased me.

After a couple uneventful orbits at an 8/16, we move over to a new 30/60 game, where I finally get to play with the man, the myth, the legend, THE Mike C….worm33, whatever you want to call him…I just call it a privilege [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]. Good omen comes when I 3bet 2 players from the BB with TT, get 4-bet, get raised when I bet a 622 flop, checkraise the turn HU when a K falls, get called by an obviously better hand, and hit my ten on the river. Other than that, the 30/60 passed by without much incident, much to my dismay. I kept wanting to get into a major confrontation with the legendary Mike C, but the best we could do was go 4 bets preflop before I folded my TT for 1 bet on a KQx board. Schneids did a lot of folding, I did a lot of yawning, and I finally decided to start making Corona my new sidekick around 5pm.

I get called to the 3/6 around 6pm. I’m the first 2+2er to get on to a 3/6 table, and I’m wondering how I should act without any of my homies in the game. It’s hard to play the role of maniac when no one else at the table raises. I color down two stacks of $10 chips to four racks of blue to accompany my eight remaining $10 chip stacks. The guy to my left promptly asks me if I thought I had enough for the game. I respond by folding my BB out of turn so I could go pick up two more racks of blue. I then proceed to raise the next 3 hands and win two of them, including a fantastic runner-runner two pair with A5s to crack QJ’s two pair. I spend the next 10 minutes trying to get NLsoldier and his buddy to extract themselves from their 8/16, but they give me some sob story about how they’re “up” and “in a good game” and “way down on the list for the 3/6.” I would have argued longer, but I got my seat change to table 10….the soon-to-be site of the greatest train wreck of a 3/6 game that Canterbury has ever seen.

I draw the 5-seat at table 10 and drag my 6+racks of blue over. I soon set upon trying to bust the short-stack at the table, the 3-seat, so Schneids can get his table change. I raise him preflop every opportunity and raise any time I caught a piece of the board, but somehow he manages to double-up against me twice in like four hands. I claim that the game is rigged and go wander around for a few hands to go look for a tampon for NLSoldier. I come back and the 3-seat is down a stack of blue, which he promptly loses in quick fashion. Schneids grabs the 3-seat and it’s show time. He buys in for something like 5 racks, so I’m still comfortably in the chip lead.

Aside: Sorry for missing the 2+2 meeting at the bar…time management is not a strong point for me, even when I’m sober. That being said, screw all of you who didn’t come over to say hi to me. I wasn’t too hard to find Wednesday night.

Schneids gets into the game right around the dealer change. I announce my intentions of busting everyone at the table and begin to employ the Praying Mantis style of betting. Frank, the dealer, informs me that he will not tolerate my antics, especially my yelling, as he has a headache. I do try to comply with his request, but my desire to be the center of attention outplayed my desire to straighten up and fly right. A few hands into Frank’s down, I drag a pretty-good sized-pot…maybe $100-$120. Frank shoves me the pot and shove maybe $15 back at Frank. Upon acceptance of said tip, Frank informs me I am welcome to scream and yell all I want. Is that how much your self-respect costs, Frank? $15? How much for your dignity? Somewhere in my alcohol-soaked brain, I make the connection that big tips = permissive staff.

Somewhere in there, Brian #2 (sorry, dude…I can’t remember your 2+2 name either) gets his seat at table 10. It took me a while to realize he was a 2+2er because he was only playing 40% of his hands. Despite his pathetic rock-like performance, he spent a good part of the night trying to claim the Brian #1 status from Bicyclekick. Alas, BK solidified his status of Brian #1 when the chip-runner rolled 20 racks of blue over to the table when he sat down. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Back to Frank. The 4-seat, sandwiched between two stacks of +$600, decided the heat was too much for him and took a seat change. I make a bid of $10 for Frank’s dignity and attempt to bribe him into allowing Brandon (aka Edge34) to skip the list and take his seat. Apparently Frank’s dignity was a little pricier. New guy sits down and comments on Schneider’s stack. He responds by promptly adding a couple more racks to his stack. I find this unacceptable, and the arms race is on. Over the next hour, Schneids got his stack up to around $1400, I got mine up to $1200, and finally the floor steps in to inform us we can’t buy any more racks, as they are running out of blue chips.

After putting the hurt on a few more 3/6 all-stars, we finally get down to 2+2 section of the list. Here’s what the table looked like at its peak:

Seat 1: Brian #2
Seat 2: Bigbeitsim(milo)
Seat 3: Schneids
Seat 4: Edge34
Seat 5: Gonores
Seat 6: Old grumpy dude
Seat 7: Jeremy, the closest thing to a rock at the table for a while
Seat 8: Bicyclekick
Seat 9: Dude playing the ponies

I make a gesture of appreciation for Canterbury’s willingness to entertain me, and I remove my Terrell Owens jersey (which I was wearing as part of a bet I lost to bunky) to show the “Do I look like an ATM” t-shirt I was donning. Inexplicably, Schneids chose not to wear his ATM shirt to the card barn, so I monopolized the looks of jealousy for my superior wardrobe. Milo enjoyed the shirt while he was there, until he left, citing “family responsibilities” and “being up since 3am” and the “9am closing on his new house tomorrow morning” as reasons for leaving. It’s ok….I could only watch him straddle and subsequently fold when it inevitably came back to him capped at 5 bets for so long before I’d get sick anyways.

A few highlights in no particular order

- Schneids and I get it heads-up by the turn after I bet and raise every opportunity from the BB with 57o and I suck out on him by hitting my 4th spade on the river on a AQTxx board. When I bet the river, he asked if I had a spade. I said “yes” and he called. 5-high flush good.
- I 3bet a bunch of players with JJ (hey, what can I say…I’ve always got the goods). Anywho, pony-boy raises me on a Qxx flop, I declare my distaste for his play, and inform him I will suck out on him so bad. I check dark and recommend to pony-boy that he bet. I call after the 9 turns. I check dark again and once again recommend he bets the river. The jack falls, I check-raise, he calls, and he shows his QJ. He appears displeased until I inform the table and everyone within earshot that I just hit a one-outer. He realizes I’m right, and then he really gets ticked.
- Schneids calls my flop bet with two undercards and no draw, sucks out on the turn, and I call him down. Little luckbox turns over his turned pair, and I get up and exlaim “HOW COULD YOU CALL THAT? WHAT A TERRIBLE PLAYER!” Edge looks around at the scene I’ve created and says “Jeez, don’t everyone look at once.” I see 50 people craning their necks to see what is going on, so I leap out of my seat, point at Schneids, and notify him that “YOU’RE DISRESPECTING THE GAME!” This spurred the first of many talks between myself and floorman Al. I employ Big Tip theory and slip him a few blue chips while thanking him for keeping that jerk in the ATM shirt in line.
- I order popcorn shrimp. My crusty old neighbor in the 6 seat, Francis, inquires about the delectable snack-treats seated between us. I tell him to try one. He takes this as license to chow down every time I look away. I finally catch him in the act and say “Francis, the ocean called. They’re running out of shrimp.” Jeremy, in the 7 seat, gets the reference. Francis was too busy enjoying my meal to hear me. Everyone else was paying attention to Bicyclekick, who was making a scene for some reason. What an attention-monger. Comedy gold gets flushed right down the toilet.
- At the peak of crowd size, I’m out of a pot for some reason, so I reach into my coat pocket for a Red Bull, anticipating a long night. As I didn’t want my contraband confiscated, I chug the entire thing at once. Murmurs go through the crowd. “That explains a lot’


I missing a ton of great moments…hopefully other can fill in. But this is long already and I wanted to get around to the best part of the night. Pony-boy finally goes home. His replacement is THE quintessential 3/6 all-star. It’s some young kid (too young to drink) with his posse following him around. Mr. vpip25/pfr5. I’m fairly certain he has a poster of The Crew in his room. The second you start watching him, you just know that he’s played online and he uses the following phrases quite liberally:

LOL
WTF
R U KIDDING ME?
UR A FUKKING MORON

As he is waiting for the blinds to come around, he watches to kid in the 3-seat with a huge pyramid of chips go 4bets preflop with the kid in the 5 seat, only to see the 3-seat’s 6x lose to the 5-seat’s 72o on a 76xxx board. He delivers this news to his posse and makes general commentary to the growing crowd behind us.

Fast forward a few hands…it’s bicyclekick and I going ~1 million bets preflop and then again on a 45T flop. I bet a blank on the turn and a blank on the river. BK mucks 62o face-up on the river and laments his bad luck. I flip over 36o and told him I had him dominated the whole way and he didn’t deserve half the pot anyways. 3/6 all-star tells the posse and everyone else about how bad the play is at this table. Meanwhile, he’s down a few stacks.

Bicyclekick went home around 3, but 3/6 all-star and other young 2+2ers are still there. Somehow, on my BB, we get one limper and Edge completes in the SB. I have a momentary lapse of judgment and check with 97o. I immediately recognize my mistake and begin chewing myself out. I bet an A84 flop and get a caller. I’m still enraged about the preflop check. 7 comes on the turn, I bet and get a fold from the new-guy limper. I am so pissed at myself for missing the extra $6 preflop that when the dealer starts pushing me the pot, I tell him I don’t want it. Keep it, Richard. This pushes 3/6 all-star off the edge. The look on his face will forever be etched in my memory…you could just see him trying to calculate how many ramen noodle meals that $21 could buy. It took him a good half of a hand for the magnitude of the events that just transpired to register with him so he could go tell the posse of our most recent transgression. As the dealer thanked me profusely for the tip, I replied (for the umpteenth time that evening) “I do what I can. I’m a humanitarian.”

4:30am rolls around and we decide it’s time to go home. 3/6 all-star asks me if I’m sure I really want to go home. Moments earlier, stuck about a rack, 3/6 all-star’s posse shows up and asks how he is doing. One of them points at my pile of 1100+ chips and asks if I bought some more. 3/6 all-star proclaims “ He keeps playing every hand, but he’s so lucky. He’s not even down tonight. I can’t catch a hand on this table.” Anywho, in response to 3/6 all-star’s inquiry toward my desire to go home, I reply “Well, I think I’ve proven I’m the best poker player in the room…there’s not much else to do.” The table cracks up, and Schneids and I grab a million racks, rack up, and use the rolling tables to roll our loot to the window.

It was great meeting everyone, and, yes, NLSoldier overcame the tragedy that is PMS to make it over to the 3/6…eventually. I also got to meet a fellow Marquette-er and part-time poster BurnsvilleCardClub and watched him 4-bet a short stack with KQ on a J9x flop with KQ, only to hit his T on the turn on the all-in and taunt the guy mercilessly. That's just how us Jesuit-educated punks do things, I guess [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]. Chrisdhal, NoChance, Matt…everyone else who showed up and didn’t get mentioned…it was a blast. I’m looking forward to another one.

Sorry all these stories are centered around me. Details are sketchy at best, and the memories are coming back to me at a trickle. Hopefully, everyone else can chip in with their own recounts.

God bless you if you got this far. I’m not proofreading this. I have presents to wrap. Happy holidays to everyone.