Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Belterra... Vevay... Poker... Chardonnay... Oh My!
Thanksgiving Holiday is always a special time for me... SURE!, it's a nice time to get everyone together, but plus or minus a few days either way... it's my birthday! It fell on a Saturday this year. Every now and then it falls on Thursday so I get to enjoy being a Turkey on Turkey day!This year I took a short trip to Belterra Casino Resort & Spa, Belterra, Indiana. It's about a four hour drive from Knoxville, TN. Pretty easy trip door-to-door. Straight up I-75; turn west on I-71 to Exit 55 and head North on Rte 1039 across the Ohio River and it's just about a mile East of the off-ramp...can't miss it! The Belterra is a nice place with a show theatre, a few eateries and minimal shopping. The Casino boat is out the back through a long winding corridor. Lord I hope you enjoy second hand smoke!
Main deck of the casino consists of the table games and they have a pretty good spread of what you'd expect in a riverboat or any other casino for that matter. Lots of slots on the main floor and the deck below. The Poker Room is on the main floor. Just as you enter the casino area, turn left and go all the way to the back of the room and you will run right into it. The poker room is kinda small with only a few games spread at any given time. It's only a 24 hour room from Thursday through Sunday. They carry a couple of tourneys each day @ 12pm & 7pm.
This trip out I arrived Friday morning and got settled in to my hotel in Vevay... just about 7 miles west of the Casino. Let me tell you something... I don't know why you'd want to stay in the Belterra at at typical Casino hotel when you can enjoy a VERY nice suite in the Ogle Haus Best Western just a few miles down the road for a fraction of the cost! For only $59 per night, I ALWAYS stay at the Best Western Ogle Haus Inn. 
What a cool little place with a bit of history as well. It is allegedly HAUNTED! According to one of the local experts... okay it's Roddy the Bartender... Doors in the Inn open and close by themselves. Makes one wonder... if you're asleeo at night (or in the day if you're a poker player), and your closet door opens... does that mean a ghost is coming out of the closet?... and just what does that ghost have to gain by coming out of the closet at THAT point?.... Hmmmm nevermind!
Well, the girls at the Ogle Haus always treat me right when I come into town and give me a nice suite! This time was no different and they even upgraded me to a King Master Suite. Pretty dern nice room and the Hot Tub was big enough for EVERYONE on the short bus! (Hey! You missed yo Bus!) ANYways... Not only did I enjoy the Jacuzzi, but also the 52" HDTV over the fireplace. Okay... enough about the room!
Hit the poker room after getting freshened up just in time for the 12pm tourney. Like I said, it's not a large room... somehting like 10-12 tables, but it's non-smoking...unlike the rest of the cancer center-boat. The tourney filled out 6 full tables. A few hours later we were down to eight players at the final table. The tourney paid out to seven places and someone made the suggestion to chop. Everyone was up for it as a chop paid all eight players $325. We all agreed and I was especially agreeable since I was close to sith or seventh in chips and DEFINATELY didn't want to go out on the Bubble yet again! So we all took the money and ran. NOT before tipping the dealers a nice $25 tip from each of our winnings. I only wish all the tourney players were as agreeable to pay a portion of theur tips to the dealers. There are some tight-ass players out there!!! MAKE SURE YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR DEALERS!!!!
I jumped into the cash game after taking a short break and quaded up my buy-in after only a few more hours. Not a bad day at the table. But I always seem to do well there @ Belterra. Last time I was up there I placed 2nd in the Friday tourney and trippled up my starting bankroll in just the cash games alone over a 2-day period. The tables are somewhat soft in my opinion... or maybe I'm just a Rock Star!..... nahhhhh.... they're soft...
I broke out of there early that night to head out for a drink... or 10 before heading back to the room and to relax in the Jacuzzi and enjoy the Plazma....
Played in the Saturday noon tourney once I washed the cobwebs out but didn't do so well this time. Lasted a through a couple of breaks but was limping most of the game. Jumped on the 1/2 waiting list and sat down at a 2/4L game while waiting. GAAAAK! Donate a Benjamin everytime you sit down at a Limit game! Not too fond of it... but I WAS watchin' the UT-UK game while playing so it wasn't SO bad.... DAYUM! that game drove me nutz in the second half!
Busted out of the Casino early that night... went out to Mo's for a nice piece of Prime Rib (X-tra Rare)... and another dip in the Jacuzzi and kicked back to watch a lil TV.
Checked out brigt and early Sunday morning to make sure I beat the Holiday weekend return traffic and made it hope in good time with no delays.
Lemme say one more thing about the staff in the Belterra Poker Room... All the Supervisors and Dealers are nice as pie. Steve, Sam, Karen and Georgann (George) (She can't even spell her name right) . Steve looks JUST like Corey Nix; Sam looks like a tall Danny Devito; and I'm not even going to get myself into trouble by trying to compare the ladies to anyone. I'm not a COMPLETE idiot! They have a copy of my driver's license..... they're libel to come after me!
Wing Wing!!!
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Try To Complete The Ultimate Maze
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Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Gloom, Dispair, & Agony on Me... "Whoa"!
Okay...so you KNOW yer gettin' "old" when you throuw your back out while pulling on your sock. What's up with THAT? Thursday morning I was getting dressed for work and decided to stand while I pulled my socks on and...yep.....that's right. I lost my footing and slammed my foot down to catch myself and when I did.... WHAM, I felt my back jar out of place. I started to stretch right away thinking I would be able to work out the tightness, but to no avail. It got progressively worse throughout the day and even worse overnight. So bad that I came home early Thursday afternoon and stayed out Friday. Continued to recover over the weekend and went in to work on Monday. I ended up spending a lot of time outside on Monday which didn't help things to say the least. I got some Rx meds last night from the Doc and they are working a bit but it's one of those things that will just take a little bit of time to heal. So in the meantime...no running the high-hurdles, and no basketball.
We'll see how it's doing in the next few days....
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Wekend Play Wasn't too Shabby
I didn't fare to well in the tourney this time....popping out around mid field. I DID hit pretty well in the cash game in the loser's lounge however so it MORE than made up for the dissapointing finish in the tourney.
This afternoon I played a 50 FTP points tourney for a $26 satelite token and after 4 hours and 10 minutes took it down for the win! Not bad for two days in a row.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
John Travolta
I think my Poker Nickname has been changed to "John Travolta"....based on my several recent finishes in local AND online events on "The Bubble" and JUST outside the money for those events. (Of course, those who like JT's work know one of his roles was "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble").
In my home games, I've finished on the bubble more times than I can count (although I have made it in the Top Three on 3-4 occassions), including at my New Year's Tourney where I finished 6th where it paid to 5th.
Too many times at the local Free Rolls I've finished just outside the money, and most recently at Geoff and Amy's this past weekend where I went out in 5th position where it paid to 4th.
...Last night... well, last night doesn't count because I was the first person out at the final table but since only 1st & 2nd were rewarded at that Free Roll, it doesn't quite qualify as the bubble.
Hopefully, along with the new nickname come a new dancing ability that Travolta is known for....although I tend to think his dancing looks more like he's having an epileptic fit at times.
Happy Tuesday!
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
$5 + .50 online tourney on Monday
I was dealt KTo right off the bat and I was UTG. Pushed all in and had 3 callers! UNBELIEVABLE! Well I hit my King and won the first pot and was immediately moved to another table with 6,000 chips in hand. Next hand I was dealt ATo and pushed it all in again at the button -1. I got 2 callers, one of shich had about 4K in his hand. I flopped 2 pr and took it down for nearly 12K now. I tossed it all again on the next hand with NOTHIN' and a guy with only a few hundred left called and I hit 1 pr to win again! Amazing! The folks at the table were calling me a Donkey and EVERYTHING else that came up in *******, but I couldn't help but laugh at the situation.
Being the creative one that I am.. I figured I could PROBABLY run my errands with my wife quickly and get back in time before I was blinded out of the tourney...yeah right! Long story short....I ended up spending WAY too much time out running errands and by the time I got back, my MONSTER stack was bled dry down to 27th place (out of 300+ players), which I found to be completely ironic that I just MAY have found a new way to sustain life in a tourney from now on......HA HA! Not likely, of course.
Pretty funny story though about something that just simply PISSES me off to no end when those Donkeys push all in on the first few hands in the free rolls, and yet they ALWAYS get a caller or two... or THREE in this unique case...
Happy Hunting!
Sunday, January 15, 2006
What Does "Digerati" Mean?
The digerati are the elite of the computer industry and online communities. The word is a portmanteau, derived from "digital" and "literati," and reminiscent of the earlier coinage glitterati (glitter + literati). Famous computer scientists, tech magazine writers and well-known bloggers are included among the digerati.
The word is used in several related but different ways. It can mean:
Opinion leaders who, through their writings, promoted a vision of digital technology and the Internet as a transformational element in society;
People regarded as celebrities within the Silicon Valley computer subculture, particularly during the dot-com boom years;
Anyone regarded as influential within the digital technology community.
The first mention of the word Digerati on USENET occurred in 1992, and referred to an article by George Gilder in Upside magazine. Some sources say that the term was coined by New York Times editor Tim Race. In Race's words:
Actually the first use of "digerati" was in a Jan. 29, 1992 New York Times article, "Pools of Memory, Waves of Dispute," by John Markoff, into which the term was edited. The article was about a controversy engendered by a George Gilder article that had recently appeared in Upside magazine. In a March 1, 1992 "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine, William Safire noted the coinage and defined it:
Digerati, n.pl. -- people highly skilled in the processing and manipulation of digital information; wealthy or scholarly techno-geeks.
So while I'm NOT a member of the elite "Digerati" club (yet), I've always been looked at by my peers as the geek to go to when they needed something done that involved technical systems. Several years ago someone mentioned going to the Digerati for help... and it stuck. Voila!
Missed out on Scotty's Tourney Last night
Well sadly enough I had to bail out of Scotty's Tourney at the last minute yesterday due to some family matters at home. My son and I had an argument and I didn't think it would be appropriate for me to leave and play cards so soon afterwards. I'm sure my wife appreciated my staying ended up staying at home and playing a little online poker on FTP. I read this morning that Chuck took it down last night so a big congrats goes out to him for the win. GOOD JOB CHUNKY!
I'm gonna do some honey-do's around the house today and finish fixing up the garage.It's looking pretty good now and I've got some good parking space for the motorcycles.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Welcome to the Big Orange Poker Room!
Howdy! I'm Tony and I'm a die-hard University of Tennessee Volunteers Football Fan (But the reality of it is that it just doesn't stop at football... if it's a UT Vols game... I'm interested!), and figured it was time to jump on the Blog Wagon and put some of my rantings on virtual paper. I've been writing down a lot of my thoughts for years in either paper or digital journals, on an ad-hoc basis. We'll just have to see how disciplined I can be with keeping this up for the BOPR.
I'm a member of the Knoxville Poker Players Meetup. The KPPM has a virtual place on Meetup.Com where we share our rambling thoughts on our poker play, local events, pilgrimages to the big gaming sites and of course, our online play. Drawing Dead is the group organizer and does a great job on his blog, which has inspired me to take off on mine. You'll likely benefit from visiting the KPPM and if you're in our area, stop by one of our events and toss your chips in the pot. We also play a regular online event on Full Tilt Poker with a KPPM Members Only Tournament. Come on out and try your luck!
The pic you see above is of my game downstairs in my house which I've dubbed the "Big Orange Poker Room". I used to call it "Man's Land" but since Scotty's room has already been dubbed "Man's Land" and we all know there's not any room for TWO "Man's Lands"!
While I will likely talk a lot about poker in here... I don't intend to limit my ramblings to ONLY poker. I also drive a Harley Road King Custom and enjoy getting out and cruising on it more than anything. I've always enjoyed motorcycles and waited until I retired from the U.S. Army to buy what I really wanted, rather than settling for something mediocre.
