White Christmas

Back from the very cold weather in Minnesota.  Had a nice visit with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and my two nephews who live out there.  I am amazed every time I go there, how many people actually live in the Minneapolis area.  Apparently quite a few.  In fact more than in the San Diego metropolitan region, but not by a whole lot.  The Minneapolis metro region area wise is 6,364.12 square miles, while San Diego metro region is much smaller at 4,199.89 square miles.  In any case, there's a lot of people who for some reason voluntarily live in the cold weather!

Got out to Canterbury Park for a total of 5 days in my 11 day trip to Minnesota.  Overall finished up enough to cover my family's plane tickets costs plus a little extra.  Had a couple of brutal sessions where I dropped 10 racks combined, but then also had two very good sessions where I won almost 15 racks combined, and everything else was just meh.  The two sessions where I got killed, I also got very inebriated, celebrating the holidays.  Which brings me to my next point, I think for the year 2013, I plan on playing poker without drinking.  I did this before for a while, and then kind of fell back into drinking again without really thinking about it.  But here lately it seems like every time I drink and play poker, I just can't seem to hold it together.  So from here on out I will be offering a $50 bounty, collectable only once per night per person, if you see me drinking in a 20/40 limit or 5/5 no limit or 2/5 PLO game or higher game payable on the spot and you mention that you saw the bounty posted here.  8/16 and lower games do not count, also if I decide to have a beer at the bar that does not count either.  You must physically spot me at the table drinking an alcoholic beverage of any sort and discretely notify me of such.  Bounty is open, unless I officially call it off publicly here.

Hooked up with Urkel while I was in Minnesota.  Urkel, his cousin, and I caught the week 17 matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers at the Hooters in the Mall of America.  Urkel got very very smashed and was hitting on everything with two legs and breasts.  It was a funny sight to behold, but Urkel was very gracious and welcomed me with great hospitality to his home state and I had a great time with him at the restaurant.  I sweated his bet on the money line (he took the Vikings of course, even though they were getting 3.5 points at home), and I told him and his cousin even though the Vikings looked very good early, that the game was going to come down to a field goal, and I was right.  I tried to pick up the tab for two young Army guys I saw in uniform at the restaurant anonymously, but Urkel made a big scene when the waitress came over to drop off their bill thinking it was ours.  They were gracious about it and came over to thank me and shake my hand.

Some gripes about Canterbury and some positives as well about the place.  First, the card room itself is pretty well-run.  I didn't see any major disasters, card throwing, fisticuffs, or anything major like that.  So I think they run a pretty clean place and don't put up with a lot of bull crap there and dealers for the most part are pretty good.  Complaints, first the food is expensive and not comped for the bigger games, and isn't that good.  This is partially made up for by giving back cash comps to the players.  $1 an hour for games below 20/40 and $1.50 an hour for bigger games.  Also if you play at least 1200 hours a year, they will give you a GOLD member card that gets you 50% off of food.  The action is great there, and they consistently had at least one 20/40 game going whenever I was there or checked on Bravo Poker Live, and it was accurate.  I really wish Oceans-11 would get on that system.  Most of the time there was also a 40/80 half holdem half Omaha 8 or better running.  One night they kicked up the mixed game to 50/100.  I am not an Omaha specialist, particularly not at high-low split, but do know how to play the game.  I have spent much more time playing PLO and prefer that.  Minnesota recently changed the law which enabled CP to spread bigger games.  The max bet allowed by law used to be 60, so that's why the spread 15/30 and 30/60.  Now it's a 100, so now they regularly spread 20/40 and 40/80, with the occasional 50/100 thrown in.  They also have pseudo no-limit cash games disguised as mini sit and go tournaments to get around the no no-limit law in Minnesota.  The place appears to have a thriving poker economy and CP doesn't employ any proposition players.  Other complaints valet parking isn't free.  It's normally 6 dollars, but is 3 dollars if you have an MVP card, and you can use your comp dollars for that.  That's what I did each time I went out there.  You are supposedly only allowed one alcoholic beverage every 30 minutes, but that is pretty loosely enforced and pretty easy to get around even if someone calls you on it.  They don't sell Red Bull.  Beer was expensive $4.25 for a bottle of Coors Light.  Jackpot was up to like $105,000 or so.  Takes quads over quads to hit, both hole cards for both players must play.  There was actually a hand where quads over quads happened on my table, but unfortunately the kicker didn't play.  It was 99 versus 75 on 99555 board and quad nines checked the river in position?!?  Other odd complaint, if you have broken game status but sit in another (smaller) game you lose your broken game status.  Wish they would have told me that before I sat and played an orbit in 8/16 only to discover that I had to post when I got called for the 20/40 main game!

Well I think that about wraps it up for this update.  I did many other things with my family while I was in Minnesota, but outside the scope of my poker playing and I figure those sorts of mundane things are probably not of great interest to my readers, so I won't bore you all with the details.

Run good in 2013!
Happy New Year!