Well, I don’t hate California, but it is cold and it’s damp. And most of the other lyrics to the infamous song are pretty true to my style. There must be a missing verse about playing poker with a bunch of old Chinese men because I think I’ll be doing that somewhat regularly for the next few months.
In light of the phone bill fiasco (which I discussed further with Larry, and he still thinks it’s going to be more like $30 instead of the $100 I estimated), I decided to explore my other options. Someone had told me about Bay 101 when I said I was moving here. Turns out it’s about ten minutes away from where I live. With convenience like that, how could I lose?
I don’t normally traipse into casinos by myself and hang out, unless I’m in Vegas, have a room at the hotel, and Gus is too tired to join me. Although none of these instances were true, I felt right at home in the Bay 101 poker room. Except I don’t have to wait for an hour to get a table at home.
I played $3/6 Hold ‘Em for a few hours with an interesting cast of characters. Well, our side of the table was interesting anyway. We were also winning most of the hands, which I suppose allowed us to let our hair down a little more.
This guy next to me kept betting strong with hands like 8-2 offsuit and winning, then losing with high cards. He was pretty light-spirited no matter what and it was nice chatting with him.
Another gentleman had also just moved to San Jose from Texas and we talked about that for while. Some of the FOB Asians couldn’t believe that it’s illegal to play Texas Hold’Em in a Texas casino.
To my left and across from me were a couple of Asian girls who played really well. The one across from me kept getting full houses, but somehow convinced half the table that she had nothing and they should call her. With structured betting, that’s pretty hard to pull off. Good stuff.
At around 10:30, I was up by a nice chunk of change, so I decided to take off. I almost felt bad for leaving so early, especially since Larry called all of his friends so they could “jam” while I was gone. When I came home, there was no jamming, just him and some old guy who plays the harmonica and does origami. He’s good at Scrabble, which Larry is just getting into. The last time I played Scrabble, I lost to Gus, so I hope to play again soon to raise confidence in my abilities again.