My Partial March Madness Participation

My weekend is almost over and I wish it could last for another couple of days or so. The most bitter part of the last couple of days is that I, once again, had to miss the T2V Friday night party. This time it was due to illness.

The past week has been one of the toughest work-weeks since I moved to Vegas. The combination of moving to swing shift not too long ago, the impending March Madness, spring break, St. Patrick's day and a severe lack of sleep finally caught up with me on Thursday night. After getting very little sleep Thursday afternoon, I got up and joined the T2V gang over at The Hotel (Mandalay Bay) for a T2V March Madness happy hour kickoff. The drive over there would be the most recent time that I felt somewhat close to a 100%. Most of the characters were in attendance and I'm glad I was able to be there, but about an hour after getting to the suite, I developed a cough and it was downhill from there. After visiting for a couple hours, I headed down to work on what would be a pretty hellish night.

Much of the gang wrapped up their happy hour about an hour into my shift and I suddenly found myself inundated with happy T2V drunks playing at my craps table. Unfortunately, the dice went ICE cold and it wasn't much fun for a while. For those of you who didn't stick around and catch the rebound, I'm sorry I had to do my duty and reinvest your money into my company's bottom line! Fortunately though, the dice did come back around to luke-warm levels and a few T2Vers got out of there with some cash. I also REALLY appreciate you guys setting a good example by making those dealer bets for us. We dropped more tokes in that hour or two you were there than in total for the remainder of the shift!

After the T2Vers left, my health just dropped exponentially and by the end of the shift, I was just one exhausted, hacking, stuffed-up feverish blob of jelly with joint pain to boot. I took my temperature when I got home and had a fever of around 101. Whether it is a bad cold or some sort of flu, its just kicked my ass since then. I did manage to get to bed around 9am Friday morning thinking I could get up around 6pm and make it to the Friday party at MGM by 7pm. The waking up part happened but the traveling to the Strip did not. I puttered around the house for a few hours, watching Ohio State lose in 2 OTs and eating a Panda Express feast that my lovely girlfriend graciously brought over. But around midnight, I was back in bed.....for another 8 hours!! That would be about 16 hours of sleep in a 22 hour period.

I woke up around 8am Saturday morning still feeling like crap, but a little better than before. So I decided that I'd suck it up and join the gang for the T2V annual poker tournament. This year's tourney was held at Binion's downtown. Once again, Dougie did a fanastic job of putting together the tournament this year. I'm sounding like a broken record each year, but he definitely deserves accolades for being the point-person for this thing each and every year. It can't be an easy job and I'm not sure if this event would exist if it wasn't for him! Danielle picked me up around 1pm and we made it down into Binions about 20 minutes before the tournament started. 38 people signed up and 33 actually made it. They paid the top five places.

If you don't remember my result from last year, feel free to go to my post last year and see my coveted prize for finishing one spot out of the money! Being the bubble boy was NOT fun at all and I hoped to do a little better this year, but it wasn't meant to be. Danielle sat behind me for most of the tournament and she can vouch for the suck-ass cards I was getting most of the time. There was ONE hand in the first hour that I held pocket sixes and flopped a boat, bet $100 into a $300 pot and had all 5 or 6 limpers fold! Drat! Before my stack got too light, I went all in with A-10 offsuit, got two callers and somehow tripled up. I made it to the final two tables, but the blinds were quickly getting to me and I had to try it again, with A-5 offsuit, which was pounded by pocket queens. I was out in 12th place, two spots from the final table, which is the first time I've missed the final table in the 3 of these I've played in. At least someone else got the nice fanny pack sent to them this year (DonD to be exact).

I'm sure Dougie will put it to a vote at some point on where to have the tourney next year, but I'd definitely give a vote to return to Binions. Their tournaments are run fantastically, all of the dealers were friendly and patient with the new players (this tourney sees a bunch of newbies play each year), and the tournament director was on top of everything the entire time! Another thing I liked was the fact that the blinds didn't raise so dramatically that it just became an all-in fest after a an hour of play....like those tournies on the Strip. This tournament lasted a total of 5 hours and although it hurt a bit to finish out of the money, at least I got some play in for my buy-in. The one and only downside was the fact that the tournament tables are all sectioned off and not near the cash games, so they weren't able to open a low-limit game for those people getting eliminated.

I took an hour nap a while ago and I still feel like my head is about to explode, but I need to try to stay awake for a few more hours so I can go to bed in the morning and get up to start my five-day work week Sunday night. It should be another very busy week.