The best of the best is right here

The preamble:

Manoj says, “People always want to have more stories to tell.” I first thought that was because other people might enjoy listening to these stories.  But I’ve now realized that turning your own experiences into stories is not about others, but about yourself.  Stories help you remember a particular experience better, independent of its impact on a potential listener.  And I have a story for you…but I’m writing it out mainly so that I can better remember it

The fun part:

The last three months have been very stressful.  Between my qualifying exam, academics, and other matters, I have not been relaxed (though I’ve always been happy or at least tried to be ) for a very long time.  Not long after today’s genetics exam was over, I decided that the best kind of stress relief would be to blow $100 playing in a poker tourney at an Atlantic City casino, the Tropicana.

By 3:30 PM, I was at the bus station in downtown Philly, hopped on a bus to Atlantic City, walked over to the Tropicana where I knew a tournament would start later that evening based on a brief internet search that I’d done.  It was a $100 buy-in tournament where you get a fixed amount of poker chips (15,000)…this is different than other forms of poker because you can’t be bullied by high rollers throwing tons of money into the pot since in a tourney, everyone starts off with the same amount and can only play with that amount (no add-ons/rebuys allowed).

My entry slip.

I didn’t expect anything out of this evening…in fact, I expected to entertain myself for as little as half-an-hour (if I stunk) or as long as an hour (if I was not as horrible as I thought). 

But one hand led to another, and out of a starting pool of 69 people, I made it to the final table (8) at around 11:45 PM.  I’ll omit the details, but that’s over 4 hours, a liter of water, two orders of avocado sushi, a bag of Stacy’s pita chips, and a pack of Tic-Tacs after I started. 

My sushi!

There’s no way in my freakin’ mind I thought that I’d EVER be this lucky…let alone in the first poker tourney I’ve ever played in.

Quick side note: Poker takes a healthy amount of luck and a LOT of patience.  A LOT of patience.

Back to the story.  At this point, I was excited because we’d received notice during the course of the evening that because 69 people were in the tournament, 7 would receive a payout.  So being at the final table (again, 8 people) meant I was nearly guaranteed to win something!  8 went to 7 (the remaining players all chipped in some money for 8^th place to reward him for his good play) and at that point, I was on cloud nine. 

Unfortunately, I could have been on cloud fifteen.  Here’s how…

When the table came down to 4 people, I was the chip leader (I didn’t think so but one of the remaining players who had a very short stack in comparison [so he had no reason to be biased] thought I did) or a damn close second. 

At that point, there were essentially two large stacks (mine being one) and two small stacks.  The guy with the other large stack proposed a ‘chip count’ end to the 4-way battle; basically, that’s like dividing up the money according to your chip proportions at the time as opposed to playing through until there’s one winner and earning the amount the casino tells you that you win.  [Apparently, a mutually agreeable deal amongst all players overrides house rules.]

Foolishly (or not, depending on your ‘deal or no deal’ perspective), I objected, because I stood a chance to win $2,760 (the casino’s assigned winner’s pot if we played the whole way through) if I won the whole thing. 

[If I had accepted the ‘chip count’ proposal, I probably would have taken home around $2,000.]

I was the only one to object to this.  I guess majority karma wins (the three other guys were ready to accept the proposal) because I went from chip leader to short stack very quickly and ultimately lost on an all-in pair of 10s.  Another guy had a pair of aces and called.  He won.  4^th place for me.

My certificate. 

All three of the guys who beat me were seasoned players playing in events around the world for many years (one each in his 40s, 60s, and 70s).

Ultimately, I took home $621…and some incredible memories that I’m writing about at 5:30 AM the next morning.

The fruit of my efforts.

Some other pictures I took:

Standing just outside the borders of addiction.

This gelato looked delicious.

I’ve always liked arrangements of fruits/candy/flowers/anything colorful.