Almost the end of a long weekend

Let’s finish the weekend up. After a few hours sleep I went back to get my final hours in. Now I’m just looking for some fun and to kill time and that’s mostly what I did yet I did wind up in two big pots and a controversy.

First big hand was when I pulled pocket aces. Preflop it gets capped. Pair of Ks hit the board on the flop along with 2 spades. Crap, just what I needed. Someone bats and I raise just to see what’s happening because in a 2-4 game hardly anyone will bet their trips, they love to try and trap at the $4 level. Couple of limpers and the better reraises. OK, an unusual player, he bets his trips. Either that or he bets his draws like hell. A caller in front of me and with the other limpers behind me I figure I gotta see the $2 even though the As are more than likely shot at this point. Bingo, the turn is the magic A, the A of spades putting the flush draw out there but giving me second nuts. Only quad Ks have me now although the river can also put a potential royal out there. Original better bets, a caller, I raise, another guy comes along, better raises, the other caller drops out, I cap, and the third player also drops. We go to the river heads up. It’s a blank, he bets I raise, he reraises I reraise again and he goes one better. Damn, does he have the quads? He’s been with me all the way and the table murmurings make it known that most realize I have ppAs. I raise once more figuring if he reraises I’m just calling. Yes, you can’t be afraid of the quads and if the bad beat had been Aces full of paint the way it was in other Harrah’s places I would have pushed it to the moon but the had recently switched Bally’s to Quads being the minimum beat so the bad beat was not in play. Also I was just trying to kill time, not looking to clean house, though it would be nice but that’s a nice pot already so what the hell. He reraises again and I call. Should have pushed. He’s moving with the nut flush having the Q-J of spades in his hand. Almost hit his Royal but not quite. Ah well, so I missed out on maybe another $20-30 he had in front of him. Pot was nice anyway. Too bad it didn’t stick around long. Few hands later I shoved most of it over to the guy to my left when he had As full to my Ks full. Only most of it however as I realized he was sitting with A-A by the river. Easy come, easy go.

A bit later I’m in the middle of a controversy when I catch a third K on the river and call Ks at the showdown. The woman mucks her cards on the table but not in the muck pile and before the dealer can sweep them in her brother tells her she mucked the nut flush. She reaches out, turns the cads and sure enough it’s there. The dealer starts to give her the pot and I say no, she mucked. Dealer says that the cards never touched the muck pile so they are still live. I request the floor and as the dealer explains the situation to him I pull another card from the deck. Rather than go with a decision on whether the cards were mucked or not I call the one player per hand rule. She didn’t see the flush, her brother did and he isn’t even in the game, just standing behind her. If he hadn’t said anything she never would have known. The floor actually ruled in my favor on both counts. The one player per hand was a no brainer but he then said that the hand was mucked once she tossed the cards. She made a bit of a fuss but her brother got in high dudgeon and delivered a rant about what went on for a minute or two and stormed off. WTF is your problem, you aren’t even playing? The rest of the time was spent playing for fun and chatting with the couple next to me whom I had run across a couple of times over the weekend. They are one of those retired couples I mentioned earlier who come down on a regular basis to enjoy themselves. Nice people and made the afternoon enjoyable I played until I figured I had enough hours plus a couple extra. Went to the desk to try and find my hours for the month but no one could give me them. Told me to call on Mon. Told them that did me no good, I didn’t want to leave and find a was short an hour or two so that’s why I played the extra. After 2 marathon sessions, a couple of round trips to AC and only about 4 hours sleep I was ready to pack it in so when I figured I had enough plus I finally went home. Most of the day was spent either up around $30 or down about the same and I left on the down note. How down I didn’t realize but that’s another tale.

For those of you still interested in the stroke front the arm is still coming along but progress is in such small increments that I don’t really notice them until after awhile. I just noticed that I’ve lost the spastic movement in my arm when I’m startled or I sneeze or whatever. It used to just fly out of its own accord at such times but now it stays put, moving no more than usual at such times. My fingers are a tad more flexible also. I can bend my thumb to touch my ring finger without much trouble now, something that was damned near impossible a month ago. The pinkie is still out of reach however. I am also near to flipping the bird left handed now. I get about ¾ curl on the fingers and about ¾ straitening on the middle finger. It’s the ability to operate the fingers separately that brings hope. I did find out though that trying to use a bottle opener to uncap a beer is still a risky proposition. Not enough grip strength to hold the bottle down against the force of the opener. Summer’s going to be a bitch if I can’t open beers. I hate cans. Oh well, one step at a time.

Enough for now. It’s a beautiful day here and I think it’s time to go spread some Milky Spore on the lawn since it’s fresky cut and they are calling for rain again in the next day or two. Adios amigos and thanks for your attention.