Sorry Laurie, but your Dim Sum curse has been discredited.
Years ago, when I was a wee little poker player just starting to play poker tournaments online, I was thrilled to have won a satellite awarding a $320 entry (WOW!!) into one of the big online Sunday tournaments. This was going to be the biggest tournament I had ever played, and to get ready for this momentous occasion I invited friends and family to get together on the morning of the tournament to consume Dim Sum (sort of like Chinese breakfast tapas, for those of you unfortunate enough as to be uninitiated). My eldest sister Laurie joined the table, we ate lots of good Dim Sum, and then I went home to play the tournament. I have no memory of what happened poker-wise, but I didn’t cash in the event. Ever since then Laurie has decided that it was because of the Dim Sum, and some of you may have noticed the (perhaps mysterious) comments on some of my posts preceding a big tournament from someone calling herself “lgh” saying “NO DIM SUM!”. She even created a little logo with a picture of a piece of Hum Bao (steamed dumpling filled with BBQ pork) slashed by a universal-No sign.
Well, Laurie, I thought of you when I found out that the Gold Coast, where I have spent much of my Vegas stay, has a new Asian restaurant, called Ping Pang Pong, bragging of a daily Dim Sum breakfast. As I continued to lose tournament after tournament, I wondered whether you would claim that even staying in a hotel containing a restaurant serving Dim Sum had cursed me, without me even eating any. (I did eat dinner there twice, and liked the place quite a bit – it’s always filled with Asians, a good sign, and I hear very little English being spoken, which sometimes is a problem when trying to communicate with the wait-staff).
I’m very pleased to report that Team Huge has begun to descend on Vegas – Rachel (aka Mrs. Huge) arrived Wednesday, Pete arrived that morning as well, Dan and Maya got here yesterday morning, and Melissa should be pulling in from L.A. any minute now. Deb will fly in tomorrow night, and in a surprise move Jeremy will gain entrance into the team when he takes a pause in his cross-country road trip right around the start of the main event. Yay Team Huge! Some others of you have made rumblings about possibly coming to Vegas – I haven’t done a good job of keeping up the pressure, but here it is: Come to Vegas! It’s a lot of fun to be here during the WSOP, and there’s a lot to do here even if you don’t play poker. Let me know if you’re thinking of joining the team and I’ll give you lots of details.
So back to the Dim Sum. Team Huge likes Dim Sum. Team Huge would not be denied Dim Sum just because of some silly curse. The timing was perfect – Dan and Maya flew in on an early morning flight (and for a $20 tip got upgraded to a suite that’s bigger than their house – no joke), Pete was playing a Caesars tournament at Noon, I was playing at the Wynn at 2PM, and Dan and Maya were headed for Planet Hollywood’s 2PM tournament, so we threw caution to the wind and packed into Ping Pang Pong for some delicious Dim Sum.
Dan made it to the final five in the P.H. tournament and accepted a 5-way chop earning him $665, his best tournament cash ever, and I finished 2nd at the Wynn for $1979 (in spite of completely outplaying my opponent heads-up and having him get very lucky on me to snatch victory away). Mark nearly made it a hat trick with a deep run in the nightly mega-satellite, but he sadly busted in 13th when he needed 6th to win a $10,200 main event seat. I’m not sure Mark would want to be labeled as a member of Team Huge – I think he thinks the whole Team Huge concept is pretty amusing. I guess it is pretty amusing, but you have to ask yourself – if he had embraced the whole Team Huge concept and joined us for Dim Sum, would he be $10,200 richer right now? I don’t know the answer to that question – I guess we’ll never know.
I’ll write up some stories of the Wynn tournament if I find time – it was a good tournament and I think I played well. Ironically I think I played best when it got down to two players, but it’s hard to win when your opponent wins a massive coin flip (for all his chips) and then (again for all his chips) sucks out with A-3 all-in preflop against my pocket Jacks. Blechh.
I guess Laurie can cling to the idea that I would have won if I hadn’t eaten Dim Sum, but I’m going to go with the opposing argument that the best (and only decent) result I’ve had in three weeks came on the day of Dim Sum consumption. Bring on the chicken feet!!!
-huge
Yummy!
I’ve got to think this through, so I reserve the right to a full rebuttal - but some how I think I deserve credit for egging you on so that you could once again revel in proving me wrong.
And not to nit pick, but it was more than once that you busted early after eating Dim Sum. And, the Chinese culture is based on lots of superstitions, so I would not be so hasty - Enjoy and may the Dim Sum curse be forever vanquished.