I went to my first face-to-face poker blogger gathering on July 21, at GCox25's place in Oklahoma City. I had one helluva lot of fun, and packed a lot of good times into one day and evening. Here are my top ten favorite things about my trip to Okie-Vegas:
10. Learning Chinese Poker for the very first time, and not sucking at it. Beginner's luck was mine.
9. Watching the Coxes' midget Yorkie-Shih Tzu dog run up and down the furniture and beg for attention. That little furball can leap, lemme tell you.
8. Chowing down on tasty Oklahoma barbecue from Van's Pig Stand and homemade sausage balls, deviled eggs, and endless other munchies courtesy of the fabulous cook, hostess, photographer with everyone's cameras, and all around good sport Mrs. GCox.
7. Participating with the other bloggers in my first dial-a-shots; some live, as with AlCan'tHang, and some on voice mails of bloggers who had some flimsy excuse for not attending in person AND didn't even answer their damn phones.
6. Watching and hearing 23skidoo, surflexus, Jordan, GCox, F-Train, Katitude, and Maudie get up and sing some karaoke. Video was recorded (not by me); hopefully highlights (or lowlights) will be posted somewhere soon. If TripJax sang any karaoke, I missed it, dammit.
5. Singing a bit of karaoke myself, to that number one hit by Yes, Owner of a Lonely Heart. Jon Anderson does not need to worry about losing his singing job to me. I also played some air guitar and drums on a song or two, which I am much better at than singing.
4. Listening to Mrs. GCox sing along with the karaoke machine. She is actually a wonderful singer and put the rest of us to shame.
3. Doing the Time Warp with most of the bloggers as our grand group karaoke finale (at least before I left). Photographic and video evidence of this performance exists, but that is all I can say for now.
2. Playing in my first "live and in person" poker blogger tournament. I used my "unconventional play" strategy (also known as playing like a moron) to donk off all but 2 big blinds worth of chips, then staged an amazing comeback (also known as turning into a card rack and suckout artist) to finish in second place, right behind the deserving Katitude who took down first prize.
1. And the number one best thing about my first Okie-Vegas experience..... meeting the gracious, friendly, welcoming, funny, crazy poker bloggers and their friends and family members. I think it was Gracie who said that our group of poker bloggers consists of some of the best people around. I couldn't agree more, at least based on my experience this weekend. I hope to get together with these folks again soon, and to meet more of the folks who didn't make it to this party and were missed by all.
Thanks must go first and foremost to Gary and Carrie Cox, our host and hostess, who went out of their way to make everyone feel at home, whether they had ever met us before or not. I also have to thank everyone who played at my tourney table for putting up with my newbie-ish play. I have played very few live tourneys for real money, and it showed. But eventually I settled down and the poker gods looked favorably on me in the second half of the game, especially when I caught a runner-runner boat over boat to triple up and stay alive. Of course, I was very glad to meet everyone there, and I feel like I have some real, live, not-invisible Internet friends now.
I can't wait to read everyone else's reports on Okie-Vegas 2007. I'm pretty sure everyone had fun, and might possibly have a story or two to tell.
9 comments:
Dave,
The pleasure was ours. I am so glad you got to make the trip and congrats on the second place showing in what was a mine field of donkish play. Well played, my friend.
You and Gracie are certainly correct, this group and the others I have met from this group are as good a group of people as you will ever care to meet.
Thanks again for the kind words and for making the trip north to be a part of it.
G
It was absolutely terrific getting to meet you, YEStbay. I'm so glad you made the drive.
And... I owe you $$ from that chinese poker game, you luckbox. Check your PokerStars account!
I enjoyed the recap and I'm glad you had a good time. Maybe one day we'll make it to the same event. I look forward to your Trek Convention write-up next month.
Great to meet you sir. I'll take you as my air drummer any day. But I have to know:
You raise to 1200
I reraise to 3000
You call
Flop J-9-7
You push
I agonize before folding
You had? Quid pro quo: I had T9o.
F-Train, if it's the hand I think you mean, I had AJo. I didn't want that straight draw to come through; I wanted to take it down right there. I'm glad it worked.
It was great to finally meet you. I hope you make the trek north once in a while to donk it out at the Riverwind.
8-)
Yest, it was great meeting you. I have to say that you actually played a very good Harrington on Holdem style game. You played uber-tight to survive early and then you were willing to push all-in when you were short on chips instead of allowing yourself to be blinded out. You may have got lucky a little at the end, but you put yourself in that position to get lucky. GG.
Great write up Dave, it was a pleasure meeting you.
And yes you are a luckbox :)
Just wait till I blast you in my tourney recap!!!
J.K. Jordan's right, you got yourself into position to win and things fell your way.....that's poker baby!
Meeting you and the bloggers was definitely the high point of my summer, and it was a pleasure to double you up and start you on the road to second *grin.
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