Before I start, I would like to say that I've noticed a sharp drop in the amount of action found in my trip reports, that being said, I hope this one isn't too boring.

I'm not really a superstitious person, but I had a feeling that this trip would go okay when I saw the first really good looking stewardess I've ever seen in a long while. I don't know if the lack of attractive flight attendants has something to do with anti-sex/age/weight discrimination laws, but this is an alarming trend and I plan to write my congressman (whoever the hell he is) to urge him (assuming he's a man) to take strong action in the matter.

Now that I've got that out of the way, I'd also like to say that after flying (albeit in coach) I plan to never, ever, ever ride in a Greyhound Bus again. This trip was supposed to be a family vacation, and my mom and I were planning to meet my father in Connecticut and then go from there to Cape Cod, squeezing in a trip to Foxwoods if we had time. All it did was rain for the duration of our stay in Cape Cod, but that really didn't bother me because the only thing I was looking forward to was visiting Foxwoods anyway. Even if I didn't get to play.

The tree-lined road we took that lead to the casino was fairly winding, and all of us were in awe upon seeing the Foxwoods building from a distance. Then, almost as if they planned this as a way to make clear just how big the casino/resort/hotel is, the second, larger portion of the casino peaks out from behind the trees. The entire sight seemed rather imposing and I expected a flood of flaming arrows to rain down on our station wagon from the top of the building. I was also wondering why my parents had to be Korean instead of Pequot as I saw the castle that is the world's largest casino.

It was a rather short, uphill walk to get to the casino from the self-park area (assuming you don't park in the garage), but the walkway did seem rather narrow. I walked ahead of my parents to the main building and entered through the lobby. I looked around for a while seeing only what I thought to be a crowded hotel lobby. I went back outside and told my parents that the casino must be in the other building, so I jogged over, walked in and saw nothing but elevators. I then went back outside and walked to the building I had entered initially (I would later figure out that the two structures were connected) and took a look at the sign next to one of the escalators and learned that the casino was on another level. I was sure that they would have a big, flashing neon sign to direct all newcomers to the gaming parlor, but such was not the case.

Finding the casino turned out to be only a fraction of the battle because finding the poker room took me even longer. I noticed that there were "guards" posted at the entrances to the casino which had me worried since I'm about as close to being 21 as the casino owners are to being Native American. Luckily, I had no trouble entering or exiting the gaming areas. My first stop was in the Grand Pequot Casino, which if I remember correctly, was just a large bank of slot machines and what seemed to be an international gaming area, which I thought was the poker room because of the table games. I got directions to the poker room from a Chinese man but soon got lost again anyway. I somehow wound up walking around and then needing to enter another casino, which was again nothing more than slot machines. I asked the man posted at the entrance for directions before I entered and made it a point to indicate that I had gotten directions from another man inside one of the other casinos. I would wind up having to do this four times (eventually I stopped worrying about gaining entrance to the gaming areas of the resort) before one of the guards, an elderly man with a hearing aid, gave me some really detailed directions for finding the poker room. This isn't to say that all the other directions weren't precise, I was just too stupid to follow them. All of the "ID checkers" were very friendly, courteous, and willing to help and if I had any money to spare, I would have tipped them.

I finally made it to the poker room and put my name on the waiting list for a 2-4 hold'em game (which was at least six persons long). I looked up at the spreads for the different games and wondered why the limits were all so low. I then looked across the room and realized they spread higher limits and that this particular board was for the cheap bastards.....er......low-rollers. I noticed a sign was posted with the various spreads offered and a caption at the bottom reading "higher spreads available upon request" or something like that. I was tempted to see if they could set up a 200,000-400,000 hold'em game for me, but I decided not to push my luck.

I grabbed a copy of Card Player, which was hidden on the bottom rack underneath a massive stack of Poker Digest magazines, and walked up the ramp to the sports book/snack bar area. One complaint I have is that it's not that easy to hear initials being called even from across the partition in the sports book. I noticed a woman calling out people's food orders over a microphone in the snack bar and I thought it would be nice if the poker players could hear their initials being called while watching TV in the sports book area. I waited for about 15-20 minutes and then went to see how close I was to getting in a game. I noticed that the line hadn't moved much, if at all, so I decided to go back and watch TV. After waiting a short while, I grew impatient and then asked the board operator (is this what you call them?) [No, brush] to put me in line for either a 1-3 (no ante) or 1-5 seven card stud game depending on which was moving faster. She said they were both moving quickly and I opted for the 1-3 spread figuring I wouldn't lose my money as fast.

Shortly after, I was seated and I watched my stack of chips slowly dwindle from $80 (my buy-in) to about 60 some bucks. Then, things started going my way. On one hand, I caught a ten on 5th street to give me a straight to the ace. Shortly thereafter I got an ace in the hole, an ace up, and then an ace on 5th to give me a full house. It turns out I got even luckier than I thought because there were two other full houses in the game and I had bet up the pot thinking that I had the winning hand with a pair of aces and sixes (exposed). Since there were two other good hands (kings over sevens and I forget what else) the pot was rather large. In fact, it was the largest pot I would see during my short session and I was extremely lucky to win it.

Those two hands and one other small pot put me at $167 and I thought about leaving the table, but decided to see if I could make it to $200. (I'm sure you know where this is headed.) In The Color of Money "Fast Eddie" Felson says to Vince "You remind me that money won is twice as sweet as money earned." Well, in that case, losing money you've won must suck twice as hard compared to losing money you've earned. I suffered a few bad beats and on two occasions my opponents caught their case cards on the river (I guess what comes around goes around). I had about 140 dolla.....er....I mean "units" when my game broke up and we were forced to move. Fortunately, I decided to cash out (save a souvenir $5 poker chip) and go meet my parents.

While I'd love to say that my 40 some dollar profit came from superior play, I'm certain most of it came about due to a little discipline on my part and a whole lot of luck (I'd only been playing for about 1 1/2 hours). There was, however, one play that I'm quite proud of: A middle aged man sitting across from me to the dealer's right bet on 2nd street with a pair of fives showing. Everyone else folded, but I stayed in, certain he was bluffing and called every one of his bets 'till the showdown (despite my "certainty" I didn't raise him on 5th street because I just didn't have the balls). He turned over his hand and said "I don't have crap" and I think I won with a pair of jacks. Call me an asshole, but I enjoyed hearing the groans of my opponents who held then folded better cards.

Aside from the fact that I lost fifty dollars (money won is just the same as money you've brought to the table :-) this was one of the friendliest games I've played in the duration of my short poker "career." All the players were good-natured and the dealers were all very friendly and professional. There was one dealer in particular, Patricia, who called out bets and up cards with all the enthusiasm and flair of an announcer at a horse track. Yet, she was competent enough to tell a player who predicted that another player was holding a flush not to comment. Thus, she enforced the one-player-to-a-hand rule that Mr. Barry Mulholland talked about in his Card Player article. I even tried to tip the dealer after one of my opponents won a pot since he had been such a good sport during the two suck-outs I made against him but the dealer laughed and told me to keep my money. I tried to rationalize doing this by calling it "strategy" since you're supposed to "make friends with those on your left and declare war against those on your right" but come to think of it, he may have been sitting more on my right than my left. Oh well, who cares?

All in all, I had a good time. Won a little money, lost a lot of the money I had won and learned how to play seven card stud. The Foxwoods hotel/resort/ "Indian Reservation" seems like a really swell place. I might even get a room there when I turn eighteen.

--Eric Sagong

Published with the permission of the author.
Reproduction without the author's permission prohibited.