Basketball and Poker

Went back to Atlantic City last Friday in order to play poker and watch basketball simultaneously. Caesar's was my poker room of choice, they have a lot of games going, the televisions are nicely placed in height and distance from the tables, the room is a little bit wilder than the average and you get the feeling that patient play might get handsomely rewarded.

Of course, that really didn't apply to me on Friday since all I really wanted to do was watch hoops. The poker was really a secondary measure to being surrounded by the college action. As a result, I chose a brand new 2-4 limit table and grabbed the 10 seat, where I could easily monitor three televisions as well as the cards being felted. My favorite game of the day was obviously Drake/W. Kentucky, it was one of the classic NCAA games that you'll see THE clip from for the next 20 years, and well-deservedly so. The kicker of that game is that the W. Kentucky guard who receives the inbounds pass and rushes the ball upcourt had more than 30 points and I along with everyone else was certain he was going to fire the final shot. Not so. He kicked it back for a 28 footer, the buzzer went off with the ball in midair, it found the nylon and W. Kentucky moved on. Just a great game.

What was not a great game was my 2-4 limit game. It was the exact opposite, in fact. NFHE was in full effect and in three hours I had some dream starting hands (aces, kings, queens twice) all lose as there was simply no way to get anyone off hands. And I don't mean draws, I mean hands, period. Like Jack/Deuce offsuit. Or 3,9. Soon enough, between the basketball and the best-hand-always-wins mentality of the table, I was down a decent chunk of money. But, luckily for me, there were more games on the tube. I settled in and sure enough, all that loose play sent my money right back to me over the next few hours during the late games. All in all, I think I ended up clearing a couple bucks and having a great day watching games, which was my intention for the day anyway.