Sometimes the River Ends Abrubtly: Niagara Falls Trip report

I have a meeting in Toronto on Monday and the PGA Championship final round is on Sunday so this can mean only one thing: fly in to Buffalo to play poker in Niagara Falls on Saturday so I can be somewhere with a TV for Sunday. Obvious, right?

But seriously, I had a Monday meeting in Ottawa the day after the British Open final round and, of course, I missed it due to a delayed red-eye flight. I really wanted to see this one, so I took no chances and flew out Saturday. Gotta have your priorities straight!

And now I am sitting in my lovely hotel room in Missasagua (sp? who cares) near Pearson Airport (I didn't fly in, since aparently they cannot stop on the runway here) and they have suspended play for the second time with Phil in the lead at -5. When will they restart? Well, fuck me, it's right when my meeting starts at 10AM tomorrow. Go figure.

Back to the more interesting (only slightly) part of my trip...

I got in to Buffalo around 5PM after pulling an all-nighter on Friday. Why sleep when you need to be up at 4AM? (To stay awake I played 2 long tournamnets on line and won a 45 person $1 buy-in NLHE and came in 2nd in a $5/8 person Stud 8b, but not on PokerRoom...)

I drove from lovely Buffalo directly to Niagara Falls, NY where I knew there to be an Elk's Lodge. I'd checked on-line in advance thinking it might be a good place to hang out and watch some golf. It took some searching, and 2 calls to the lodge for directions, but finally I found it.

Let's just say, I think the Elks national saved some dough by hiring the same architect for the San Jose lodge and the Niagara lodge.

They weren't identical, but clearly sprung from the same 1960s era aesthetic. The Niagara lodge was a bit smaller than ours but they have their priorities straight.

Two-thirds of the place is bar.

A great big huge bar with about 30 tables. Dark, dank, they way I like it. Unfortunately there was only one small TV and the locals were deeply in to the last few minutes of Jaws 2. I told them the shark died and they were crestfallen by my spoiler. Apparently it was a first run movie in Niagara.

There were only 3 people in the lodge: Melissa (a 26 year old member and the bartender), Mark (a late 30's protoypical Upstate New Yorker) and Gary (I'm guessing late 50s).

These folks were very nice and refused to take my money for any drinks. They even gave me a lodge pin to take back to San Jose. (I need to send them a #522 pin with a thank you note, if I remember). They were so nice I would feel dirty if I ragged on them here, so (uncharacteristically) I won't.

Turns out there's only about 300 members and shrinking in the lodge. The local economy was in a tailspin, they said, until the local Indian casinos opened (seems NAFTA shipped all the jobs to Canada).

By the time we got to the subject of local casinos, we had watched a little golf and were now on to some NY poker tournament on The Yankee Network (yes, when you're worth that much money you can have your own station too). The two guys at the bar were commenting on how they would play each hand and it was a hoot. I mentioned how I was going to play that night in Canada.

Mark says: "You should play at the Seneca Casino, they have a really nice poker room". Now I had seen the Seneca Casino whilst searching for the lodge and it was on the US side. I really had my heart set on Canada (and my hotel was there) but I thought I could play a few hands on the way.

Then Gary says: "But we're playing here around 9 tonight, why don't you join us?" Now show tunes are going off in my head after listening to their commentary for the past few minutes. This could be some seriously easy money. Then the angel on my shoulder says "do you really want to take some union dude's money from an economically depressed region of New York who is your Elk brother and just bought you a beer?" Of course, I did!

Kidding.

I begged out of there around 7PM and headed for the Seneca Casino. Nice Elken in Niagara, definitely stop in next time you're here.

The Seneca Casino is attached to what appears to be the biggest, and nicest, building in Niagara Falls NY. It's a tall glass and steel building with an enormous grey, dark grey, darker grey inverted chevron pattern eminating from the top floor; remiscent of a Native American rug pattern. But it was the interior I was really interested in.

I entered the casino on a mezzanine level from the parking garage. There was a huge, arching dark brown ceiling that gave the interior the look of a tribal lodge. Looking down, my first impression was: "I have died and gone to gambler's hell."

The sports-arena sized cavern was full of slot machines, as far as the eye could see. I have NEVER seen so many in one place, nothing in Vegas is close. It's probable that some other casino somewhere has more slots but I have never seen them so jammed in. I was afraid my Elk brothers thought I meant video poker when I asked them where to play. Oh well, the parking was free...

I wandered around the ground floor to the table games area. I think there were 2 blackjack, 4 roulette and maybe 6 random games (Spanish 21, Pai Gow, etc.). That's it. And this room is probably two football fields or more. Against hope, I asked the pit boss if they had a poker room: they did!

The Seneca poker room was mercifully in a different part of the casino well away from any slot machines. The room had about 14 tables with the following games: $2/4 limit hold'em (LHE), $5/10 LHE, $1/2 No-Limit Hold'em (NLHE), $2/5 NLHE, $5/10 NLHE, $1-5 Stud and $3-6 Omaha Hi Lo.

I put my name on every game. The guys behind me said jovially "you just wanna get a game!" Indeed, I did. I chatted with them for a few moments and found out they were Canadian and at the Seneca because "the Canadian poker room suck, eh?" Well, they didn't really add the "eh" part, but they did say the Canadian rooms were poorly run and featured wait times in excess of 3 hours. Damn, glad I came here.

The (cute and friendly) girl running the board handed me one of those LED coaster buzzers and sent me off to wait for a table. I was told it would be about an hour. Damn. Out to the slot machines I went.

I didn't really want to play slots, but the lowest table game was $15 blackjack. I hate blackjack, especially more than $5 blackjack, so I played video poker.

And quickly lost $40. One $20 disappeared when I hit the wrong button (I believe it was labeled "sucker with poor eyesight, push here"). Pissed off, I wandered back to the poker room. I had about another 15 minutes to wait in their big, comfy leather lounge chairs, then I was called up for $1/2 no-limit.

It was $100 buy-in max and I quickly won a couple of pots with big pre-flop raises followed, if necessary, by half-pot sized raises. There was a 20-comething couple sitting across from me; the girl obviously had no idea what she was doing, and the guy had on a hockey jesrsey, baseball cap and mirrored Oakley shades. Classic! I was up about $50 when the following two hands hit, back to back.

In the small blind I am dealt pocket Aces. The whole table calls for $2 by the time it gets to me (pretty typical, except for me). I raise to $8. Two callers.

Flop is K-rag-rag and I am psyched. I am hoping someone with KJ, or the like, just made top pair. I check. It gets checked around. DAMN.

Turn is a K. Oh shit. Anyone slow-playing top pair just got trips. Now I need to move. I bet out $15. Everyone folds, thank god.

Next hand, on the button, I get AA again! The whole table fishes again and I raise to $12. Two callers. (BTW, the odds of AA twice in a row is like 44000-1).

The flop comes JJ8. DAMN, DAMN. It is checked to me, I check. Turn is a rag and one of the two remaining players goes all-in for $35. I had seen this guy bluff at a couple of pots. I thought for about 30 seconds, then called.

Jersey-Hat-Mirrored Shades dude turns over Jack-Eight suited. The guy called a 5x big blind raise with a friggin' J8. I needed an Ace. It never came.

In retrospect, I probably should have tossed by Aces, but I really thought he had A-8 or something like that (he showed a propensity for playing little Aces). Oh well.

One more hand kicked me in the nads, or I should say, I kicked myself in the nads. I had 3-4 of diamonds and chased a straight, flush and straight flush down to the river where I hit the flush. I was pretty sure I was the only one to hit it because everyone checked to the bettor. The bettor bet out $15 and I raised to $30. Then he pushed all in (over $300 and way covered me).

What could I do? I had a pretty shitty flush, what I failed to see was the board was paired. Why did I miss it? Because I was so fixated on making my flush.

I folded, face up, saying "I guess your flush it better". He says, "it is" , and flips over 5-2 for a 55222 full house. Good fold, Mitch, you fuck. Ever think of looking at the board, or just calling? It was a terrible call to raise when I could easily have had 2nd best hand.

I had to reload another $60 and eventually ground myself back to "only" $40 down. The two biggest fish at the table left (including mirror-guy and his chick from whom I won back all my money) just before my name was called for Omaha, so I left and moved to that game.

Before I left though, we got into an "argument" about how much the minimum raise is in NLHE. I put argument in quotes, because this poker room might have been the friendliest I have played in. Many locals, but very nice (except for mirror dude who liked to stare me down ESPN style...)

What happened is, someone raised a $2 blind up to $12 total (a $10 raise) and another guy called by throwing in 4 red chips (1 more than needed). Big, loud dude (not in the hand) yells "he raised!" even though the guy did not want to. The guy was allowed to take his extra chip back but one of the locals kept going on about how the raise should stand (he did this in a jovial New Yorker fashion, but he was a bit annoying). The rule is you must double the previous raise. By my math, the previous raise was $10 ($2+$10) so the next player would need to raise another $10 for a total bet of $22.

Several of us tried to explain this "loud dude" but he would not listen. His buddy, the new dealer (the hand was long over) backed him up. This would have made the guy who threw in 4 reds liable for a raise had this guy been dealing at the time. Finally, just to shut Big Loud (but Nice!) Guy up, the floor came over and 'splained to him the bet would need to be $22 to be a full raise. He had a nice serving of humble pie.

Anyway, I moved over to Omaha and promptly won a bunch of money by making really long shot calls on the turn and rivering-out clearly better players. I didn't care, it's Niagara and river runs seriously wild. I also won a few pots by playing well, but mostly I was lucky.

But now this trip report is way too long, the PGA is not coming back on and I need some dinner.

Results:

$160 + $40 (video poker) in, $290 out: up $90. And I had a ton of fun.

I was out of there by 1130 and, after a late dinner of Buffalo wings (could I have anything else?), and a 30 minute wait at the border, I hit the sack at 130 AM. I won't bore you with the terrorist cell I discovered running "America's Best Inn 'n' Suites" in Canada. (How did I know they were terrorists? Because of the ironic name of their hotel, that's how!)