My Birthday

As usual I have turned my birthday into a week long celebration that I suppose will finally end tonight. Thanks to Lauren it has been the best birthday I can recall for quite some time. Thursday we headed down to Atlantic City for a delayed celebration after the long Memorial Day Weekend. I had booked a rock star suite at the House of Blues and we were having dinner at the Foundation Room that night, too. We got down early so I could play a little poker before dinner, but since the Showboat poker room doesn't have alot of action, we strolled over to the Taj to find a decent game. I found a decent No Limit game and managed to win a few hundred dollars in about an hour and a half and we headed back to our suite to get ready for dinner.
Dinner was amazing. There was only one other table of people in the place so it was very private and we took our time with the courses, finishing up with desert nearly three hours after we first sat down. Good wine, good food and great company!
After a late morning breakfast in the room we headed back over to the Taj and I found another juicy game. After getting down a little early on I regrouped, took a breath and renewed my attack. In no time at all I had managed to get all-in three times with the nuts and won three large pots, much to Lauren's excitement! It was the first time she had ever sat and watched me play and the poker gods were smiling favorable upon me. I cleaned three players down to the felt, including an older player who blew through $600 in less than 30 minutes. We got it all in with my pocket kings against his pocket queens, then he bought back in and we got it all in again with my Ace-Queen against his Ace-Jack. I made two pair and he lost again to me, informing the table he was done for the weekend as he got up and left. The third all in was a dream as several players limped into the pot and I managed to get in cheap with the 2-4 of hearts. The flop came 3-5-6, giving me the nut straight, although I didn't like the two diamonds that came up as they could easily give a player a flush draw to beat me. More money went into the pot as it came around to the man on my right and he raised it up. I re-raised him and it was folded back around to him. Surprisingly, he made another large raise and I immediately moved all-in figuring he was drawing to the diamond flush. He called me so quickly that I was amazed when all he turned over was A-6 giving him top pair, top kicker. What was he thinking? He was shocked at the strength of my hand and made a few verbal displays of his disgust with the situation. While the turn gave him two pair, my hand held up and I scooped another large pot. I decided to quit ahead and racked up my chips, cashing out with over $760 for about 2 hours work.
We spent the rest of the day checking out the shops at Caesars Pier with a little sushi overlooking the ocean.
It was a great time and I will be heading down again next week and with the Borgata Summer Open starting the following week on June 9, I am looking forward to getting back into some tournament play.