Today, I took my first trip to Foxwoods. I had no idea that Foxwoods and Atlantic City are the exact same distance from my apartment. 130 miles, give or take 5. Foxwoods is certainly a more scenic drive. It is also like the mega mall of casinos. At first glance, I like it a lot. Possibly because I’ve been doing the Atlantic City circiut for 5 years and have been itching for a change of scenery. More importantly, I did not meet a single staff member that I didn’t like. My biggest turn off for the Borgota is that they are assholes. Unless you have tons of money and/or know exactly what you want, they are kind of dicks. People go to casinos to have fun and spend money. The borgota makes me feel like they are doing me a favor by letting me enter the building. Gross.

I had a classic moment of “smart phones making smart people act like boneheads”. I passed a sign that said “casino (arrow —>) 5 miles”. Instead of driving until I hit a casino, I followed my google maps pinpoints religiously. The pinpoint for the casino landed in a gas station/dunkin donuts. I was 5 miles away, and ended up lost for 45 minutes. Driving up and down the same 4 mile strip, looking for the casino that corresponded with the pinpoint on my map. Even though I asked a guy driving a FOXWOODS TRUCK for directions, I still managed to second guess myself. I ended up at the gas station 4 times, before I finally went back to the original sign, restarted my odometer, and found the casino exactly 5 miles away. MORON. Needless to say, my flustered brain pulled into the first casino and the first parking spot that I found. Note for the future, DO NOT PARK AT MGM CASINO TO PLAY POKER. The poker room is literally 3 blocks away. 3 blocks through winding casino floors, shopping centers, and everything else casino related. Nice for exploration, but once was enough.

I rolled into the poker room just in time to register for the 11am: $300 Ladies Only No-Limit “Deep Stack” tournament. I’ve played less than a handful of daily tournaments for a less than $100 buy-in, but it was the right time and place. It was pretty crowded. 176 entries. Lotta lesbians. who knew? Of the 176 players, there was one guy. Loud mouth douchebag, is the guy who registered for a LADIES ONLY tournament. They are not allowed to discriminate. That was his constant justification. With my luck, he got moved into the seat immediately to my left. We shared that table space for nearly 2 hours. It was brutal. He would not shut the fuck up. The good news is that the ladies in the tournament all threw down to put a bounty on his head. It was nice to see everyone pull together and share an enemy. Too bad the guy lasted until the final 3 tables..

I lasted 5 hours before getting knocked out around 94th place. I was able to play passive. I let the aggressive players bet into me when I had big hands, and managed to keep a pretty healthy chip stack. As the levels passed and the blinds went up, passive playing pushed me into desperate shoving. Never ends well.

In a later tournament, dave made it pretty clear to me that I needed to play more aggressively. I got to watch him play, for about 15 minutes. Aggressive. Quick and dirty, borderline sloppy. Watching his play somehow rubbed off on my blackjack. I was dabbling in one of the blackjack tables, while waiting for a sit N go tournament to start. Suddenly, I had 10 minutes left at blackjack before I needed to leave. I started doubling my bets. Taking more risks, but ended up in the green. It made me wonder if I was being too careful and playing too cautiously.

That’s all that I have left in me. Woke up at 6am, arrived in foxwoods by 10am, poker until 11pm, home by 3am. All in all, a fun day. Sometime in my poker future, I might try some ADHD medication to see its effects on my gaming.