Cherokee, NC: April 6th-7th, 2013 - I Guess I Didn't Learn My Lesson the First Time

I went into the West Palm Beach poker tournament accepting the fact that I may not win, and knowing that losing didn't mean that I was necessarily bad, or that I was ill-suited to play this game, just that it's possible for even the best players to get unlucky and bomb out.

There are almost no casinos in North Carolina, given that gambling is illegal.  That's part of what made the Sweepstakes Cafe business so successful in its heyday.  But the Indian Reservation land in Cherokee is not subject to those same laws, and as such, the largest casino in the area makes its home in those mountains.

Just over a month after losing big in WPB, I signed myself up for yet another poker tournament at that very casino, and in early April, I drove home for a stopover in Charlotte and to pick up my dad, who was once again joining me on this mad card-playing venture.

We drove in early Saturday morning for the 11:00 AM start time and arrived with about an hour to spare.  The casino was pretty impressive:

We once again parted ways and found our tables.

This tournament was a much bigger scale than the last one.  Instead of being two days, it was three, and instead of a few hundred participants, there were over a thousand.  There was also the opportunity to re-buy if you got knocked out within a certain time frame.

I ended up needing that re-buy, as my chip stack dwindled pathetically to nothing over the course of about three and a half hours.  I had a small break before the re-start time, so I went and checked into our hotel, then came back.  I wolfed down a hot dog before starting the tournament all over at around 5:00.

The problem is, you've already been playing poker all day, and you're exhausted, but this is de facto the very beginning of the tournament for you.  So the mental faculties aren't all there.  And it showed.  I busted out around 9:30, and joined my dad - who had busted out after me in the first round, but had declined to re-buy - back at the hotel.

Like West Palm Beach, we had booked the room for the entirety of the tournament, so we were faced with a bit of down time now that we had both busted out.  Luckily, we weren't bound to a plane schedule, and thanks to a lax cancellation policy, we were able to cut the trip short and give me a day back at home that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten.  This left us with just a brief Sunday morning to explore the town of Cherokee.

We went to the museum:

...but it was closed, so we didn't go inside.

I followed this duck around:

Until he swam away:

And that was that.  Again, a nice little vacation as a consolation prize for busting out early.

Twice.

I haven't played a tournament since.  Although I haven't sworn them off, so there's always next time...