The San Jose WSOP

Alright, nothing much exciting to report from work. Maximo took the family to the beach for the next 3 days, that means I'm home alone housesitting and playing with the doggies. SO last night I caught the end of the redsox debacle...someone should just put Keith Foulke out of his misery now...pretty soon crazed burgermeisters will be making attempts on his life. Anyway - after that I gave a call to these 2 kids - Freddy and Chappy (who are 19 and 20) and are friends of Maximo's daughters, just to see what they were doing for the evening. We met down at the "Chino" (sorry henry, gotta use the local lingo) and grabbed a few beers and then headed to the Neighborhood card sharks house. From what these kids told me this dude plays the Casinos all the time, and has been teaching them texas hold em' for the past year or so...and since he lives right accross the street from the boys (who are next door neighbors) they head over to his house all the time. That being said, you know you are heading into the lions den when you get introduced to "Don Chalo" as you walk into his home. :o) fortunately for me the Don was gonna watch the kids play...and we got a 5 person game going with 2 other friends Rico "call me richie rich" and Jaun. Buy in was a steep 500 colones (about $1.25) and we played with 10, 20, 50 colone chips. The first game was garbage, i didn't get any cards, had to learn how to think a little differently cause their rules are slightly tweaked, and I ended up being the second one going out. Rules changes...they don't cut the deck, but burn the first card before they deal...they start the action on the guy to the left of the big blinds every round, not just the first round then switch to the left of the dealer...and of course they speak in spanish the whole time :o) Anyway the second game went a little better for me, as I ended up knocking out 2 players and making it to the heads-up portion vs chappy...the second hand heads up I went all in with a pair of kings, and he called me with a pair of 4's and the first card of the flop was a 4...the board ended up pairing and i lost to a full house. It was a lot of fun, and the fact that I played 2 games and only lost $2.50 is classic :o), definately gonna play again before I leave, and I'll bring my camera next time and get a few shots of the charachters and the action.