Tunica and beyond

Friday afternoon shortly after lunch time, my and a friend left for Tunica. A trip that in the past has always resulted in success (financially) and in terms of entertainment and fun. This trip was however much different.

After arriving Friday I went to play poker for hours straight. For those who know me well, they know that I play a tight but aggressive poker style. However it does take me a few hours to become comfortable enough to truly be aggressive. Tight-aggressive is also the style that most poker pros (those who make a living off poker, obviously putting down the belief that it is a game of pure luck) use. This time however my luck was not in my favor. Playing for up to 5 hours and only getting around 15-20 playable hands. I struggled to get anything going. I profited a grand total of 20 dollars during that 5 hour period. Keep in mind this is a trip of 6 1/2 hours. Not worth it up to this point.

After playing, me and Justin left to go to a local gas station. When we returned to my Trailblazer the vehicle would not start. It is over 90 degrees and about 2AM local time. Tunica has no real business that is open at this time. The closes Wal-Mart is 45 minutes away. I had no idea what was wrong with the vehicle. We believed it was a battery issue. We were correct. Luckily for us there was a kind good hearted slender black Gentlemen that saved our lives. He tested his battery on my vehicle and confirmed it was in fact the battery. My truck started no problem. As long as it keeps running I could drive to Wal-Mart and get a new battery and install it at roughly 3:30 AM. But the car died before even pulling out. This man then offered to drive us 45 minutes to the nearest Wal-Mart to buy a battery! I know of very few people who would have been willing to do this.

Roughly 2 hours later we returned to the gas station at around 4:30. New battery worked, we drove back to the Goldstrike Casino/Hotel and slept that night. I got a wonderful 4 hours of good sleep. The next morning we awoke and drove around to banks to go to the ATM. Justin's card was not working despite having plenty of money in his checking account. While out we stopped at one last gas station to try that ATM machine. As we are getting out of my car I see first hand the hardest T-Bone collision I have ever seen! A small white car hit an SUV causing it to roll over in the middle of the street! I thought for sure this was an injury resulting in serious injury. To the contrary the safety of those big gas using American SUV's that destroy the environment (according to some odd people) once again saved two people's lives. This type of accident would usually do me little harm but functioning on 4 hours of sleep over the past 30 was not the best thing for my soul.

We drove back to the Casino where we had little money. I knew Justin of course was good for it so I got money out of the ATM instead for us to use. I continued to play cards for another 4-5 hours. What was the result? More terrible cards! Finally on one of my last 6 hands I got pocket JJ and ended up rivering quad JJ's. This put me up 90 dollars for a grand total profit of $110 over about 10 hours of playing poker. In the past I had averaged winning about $700 in each of the past trips.

This profit paid for half of my battery trouble as we did pay the man for his great help to us. There were other misfortunes that are not to be posted publicly. But last night driving home on 4 hours of sleep over the past 42 was not easy. I bought coffee that poured out onto Justin, blistering his butt. Finally returned home this morning around 3:30 local time.

Tunica is a place of surprises. I have always had pleasant surprises. This trip did not have many. But the most pleasant surprise I have ever had from a stranger came from a slender, older, black gentleman in the middle of the night who blessed our hearts by driving us 45 min two ways to get a battery that he then installed for us. this man was truly a blessing on a trip that was not much of a blessing in any other fashion. thank you sir!!!